It’s all systems go for 2016 matric exams, says Minister
MInister of Basic Education, Mrs Angie Motshekga says the Council of Education Ministers are adequately prepared to run this year's final matric exams.
IT’S all systems go for the 2016 national senior certificate exams, said Minister of Basic Education, Mrs Angie Motshekga this morning when she announced that the Council of Education Ministers (CEM) was adequately prepared to run the examinations which commence on 26 October.
Her announcement follows a meeting of the CEM on Thursday 15 September in Pretoria.
The minister said there were 677,141 registered full time and 150,183 part-time candidates in 2016 examinations, 9000 more than 2015. KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng again have the largest enrolments with 169 769 and 112 069 respectively. Limpopo has 102, 618 while Eastern Cape has 89,740 candidates registered for the 2016 grade 12 exams.
“One of the developments that we are very excited about as CEM and which is definitely worth noting is that we have seen a significant uptake in pure mathematics as opposed to maths literacy. Thus meaning our interventions in the promotion of Mathematics as a subject choice is bearing fruit,” she said.
She said the CEM had also discussed the interventions that had been made to ensure that there was not another leak of any examination papers as was the case in Limpopo last year.
“All storage points across the country will be audited to ensure that they meet the minimum security standards. Storage points that do not comply will not be allowed to store the papers,” she said.
“In terms of learner readiness, the Director-General and I have been on a national road show visiting all provinces as part of our broader monitoring and support programme to provinces. We have seen some provinces tracking learner performance data from the beginning of the year and we are confident that by the time learners sit for the final exam they will be adequately prepared,” she said.
