Countdown to the release of the matric results

© Romolo Tavani – 123RF.com

The Independent Examinations Board (IEB) announced the private schools’ matric results at midnight last night.

The Basic Education Department will release the state National Senior Certificate (NSC) matric exam results this evening during a live broadcast from Vodaworld in Midrand, at 6pm.

The 2019 NSC examinations – which saw 790,405 candidates sitting for 147 question papers in 7,416 examination centres nationwide - successfully concluded in November 2019.

Tomorrow newspapers will sell out as parents and family members of matriculants buy newspapers in order to search for their loved one’s results. Learners will be able to head to their schools to find out how they fared in their exams - for what will for many be the last time they walk through school corridors.

The exam period went smoothly with only a few incidents reported across the various examination centres.

On the first day of exams load shedding affected learners writing the Computer Applications Technology (CAT) and Information Technology Practical examination. They were given the opportunity to write the paper at a later stage.

Service delivery protests also disrupted writing in the North West which led to the relocation of learners to other examination centres.

Meanwhile, the marking of scripts concluded on 14 December 2019.

The Council for Quality Assurance in Education and Training (Umalusi) has given their stamp of approval for the release of the NSC results.

At the media briefing on Friday, Umalusi Chairperson John Volmink said the 2019 national examinations went smoothly without any systemic irregularities.

Umalusi’s quality assurance process focused on the external moderation of question papers for all subjects/ learning areas across all qualifications and assessment bodies.

It also focused on the verification of a sample of site-based assessment (SBA) marks, monitoring of the assessment bodies’ state of readiness to conduct and manage the 2019 national examinations, monitoring the conduct of examinations, monitoring and verification of marking as well as standardisation of results.

Once matriculants receive their results, focus will turn to Higher Education as the class of 2019 prepares for the next step in their education.