By Hendrick Makaneta
I welcome the announcement by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga that mathematics paper 2 and physical science paper 2 will have to be rewritten by learners in the next two weeks.
The minister’s decision to allow learners to rewrite these papers will promote fairness to the national senior certificate assessments, particularly for those learners who took the time and the trouble to prepare for the examinations during some of the most difficult times in the history of the terrain of education in South Africa. The decision will certainly go a long way to restore confidence in the quality of assessments.
This has been the most difficult year for learners and teachers. It is only fair to salute all the learners who persevered against all odds in the midst of Covid-19 when others chose to give up. Ordinarily it was expected that the 2020 academic year would register a higher percentage in dropout rates compared to other years as a result of the devastating effects of the invisible enemy.
Humanity should not forget the challenges that everyone went through including jobs losses which impacted negatively on society and the terrain of education was not spared. It is for this reason and many others that some of the learners opted to stay at home and could not complete the academic year. Even some of those who returned to schools were not in the general mood to advance learning and teaching. Learners who could have performed much better under normal conditions were left with great anxiety and stress which have the potential to reduce their ability to do better in this year’s assessments.
Society should give honour to teachers who played pastoral roles by counselling many learners across the country despite the fact that they were not trained for such roles. The Department of Basic Education should find a way to bring stability to the terrain so that we can all push back the frontiers of Covid-19. A lot of teaching time has been lost and it is going to be necessary to come up with intervention mechanisms to make up for lost time.
Perhaps we should also call on the government to increase security measures to ensure that the leaking of papers does not occur in future. In the same note we applaud the Hawks for bringing the perpetrators to book and further call on the justice system to move swiftly to speed up prosecutions in order to send a clear message that the crime of leaking examination papers will not be tolerated. Successful prosecution of offenders will certainly serve as a deterrent to would-be perpetrators.
The government should be applauded for the manner in which they have handled the whole issue of Covid-19. Some of us were very sceptical about the reopening of schools in June. For the first time I must admit that the decision to reopen schools was the correct one and it has yielded positive results now that we have almost come to the end of the academic year, thanks to the honourable Minister Angie Motshekga for her vision of steering this education ship in the right direction.
As we approach the festive season, we also add our voice in calling for learners and teachers to continue to observe guidelines and regulations provided by the government. Let us continue to wear our masks and wash our hands to minimise the risk of contracting Covid-19.
Hendrick Makaneta is an Education Activist.
The Star