Primary education ready for final exams 2024

The department informed the portfolio committee for primary education this week about a preliminary report on the state of readiness for this year’s 12th grade final exams.

Minister of Basic Education Siviwe Gwarube, Deputy Minister Dr Reginah Mhaule and Director General Mathanzima Mweli led the department’s delegation to Parliament.

The exams will take place from October 21 to November 27, 2024. Grading will start immediately afterwards.

“55,053 markers have been appointed, who will be stationed at 188 marking centres. The results will be announced to the candidates on 16 January 2025. The minister will announce the results on 15 January 2024,” the department said.

Gwarube gave her opening address and said that the DBE had done a lot of work to prepare both the candidates and the system for this year’s examination. She said that this was a crucial time for the students, who are in their last weeks of primary education.

On the readiness of the system, the Chief Director of National Assessment and Public Examinations, Dr Rufus Poliah, reported that 732,448 full-time candidates were registered for the NSC examinations this year, 8,400 more than in 2023.

“KwaZulu-Natal has the largest Grade 12 population with 172,213 candidates, while Gauteng contributes the second largest number with 136,620. The Eastern Cape has 103,975 and Limpopo has 94,236. Mpumalanga has 68,455 and the Western Cape has registered 64,552 candidates. The North West has 41,480, while the Free State has 37,737 and the Northern Cape has 13,180 registered candidates this year.

“There are 136,195 part-time candidates registered to take various subjects this year. The exams will be held in 6,909 centers in the nine provinces,” the department said.

Poliah said a total of 162 examination questions for the October/November 2024 examinations have been approved by Umalusi and are ready to be handed over to the provinces for printing.

The class of 2024 is the seventh cohort to sit for the South African Sign Language (SASL) Home Language (HL) examinations in November 2024. Twenty-three schools in nine provinces have entered 210 candidates for SASL HL, compared to 134 candidates in 2023.

On learner readiness, Deputy Director General for Curriculum, Dr Barney Mthembu, highlighted a number of factors that need to be considered with regard to the current batch of learners in Grade 12.

“Firstly, the class of 2024 were in Grade R in 2012, the year of the implementation of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) in the Foundation Stage. Secondly, they entered Grade 8 in 2020 at the height of Covid-19, meaning their transition from primary to secondary school was severely disrupted.

“Thirdly, their 9th grade (2021), which is crucial for the choice of subjects in 10th grade, was also disrupted by Covid-19,” said Mthembu.

He said students experienced social distancing, which limited group work between teachers and group assessment activities. Rotational attendance impacted curriculum coverage and created content gaps. At the height of Covid-19, teacher absences negatively impacted curriculum coverage for this group.

Despite these disruptions, the department indicated that this group was beginning to benefit from the Learning Recovery Program at the primary school.

“Strategies and interventions were introduced that were aimed at addressing the academic setbacks of Covid-19. In grade 10 (2022), the system started to recover from the Cvoid-19 restrictions, leading to a return of the majority of students to school.

“This saved this cohort from rotational attendance and loss of teaching and learning time. It also helped them complete their grade 10 Annual Education Plans (ATPs). In grade 11 (2023), this cohort had the benefit of removal of social distancing and other related restrictions. This helped them cover their grade 11 Annual Education Plans,” the department said.

This year, in Year 12, they are benefiting from a wealth of resources developed to help the classes of 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 with their learning and study. These include past diagnostic reports, question papers and study materials.

Mweli visited 162 study camps in different parts of the country during the year to support grade 12 students.

The department further emphasized that the 2024 batch also benefited from being taught by teachers who improved their subject results in 2022 and 2023, motivating them to improve their performance in 2024.

The class of 2024 reached grade 12 as schools mastered the skill of using previous years’ diagnostic reports to prepare for exams.