Durban - The Department of Basic Education has welcomed the invitation to meet the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) to discuss the printing of matric results in newspapers.
This was after the congress said it would intensify its call to the department to stop publishing results in newspapers.
Basic Education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said the department would meet Cosas to discuss this issue.
“We will engage them on the matter. We will listen to what they have to say and see how we can best move forward after we have deliberated on the matter. Several years ago, we entered into a compromise where we no longer printed the names of pupils, just their exam numbers,” he said.
Cosas secretary-general Teboho Magafane said publishing results did not benefit pupils in any way.
“How many pupils have committed suicide because of mistakes, but they have passed? From Grade 1 to 11 we don’t have our results published - why must this be different when we are in matric?” he asked.
“Who gave the department the authority to give out exam numbers without consulting parents and pupils? This publishing of results must come to an end,” said Magafane.
He urged parents to support Cosas in their bid to stop results from being published.
“We need to think about those who contemplate killing themselves because of this as they get no counselling,” he said.
Magafane described the printing of matric results as a “capitalist system” that was “brutal and milked the poor and disadvantaged”.
“Victims of this system are scholars as they rely on Cosas in order for their views to find expression. The current ‘normal’ is abnormal, therefore a new normal must be adopted.”
A date for the meeting between Cosas and the department has been set for the first week of January, before the results-release day.
Provincial education spokesperson Kwazi Mthethwa said the province’s stance on the matter was the same as that of the national department.
He said in KwaZulu-Natal, the marking of matric papers, which began last week, had been going smoothly, with no glitches having been reported.
“We have been fortunate that the weather has had no impact on marking because sometimes when it rained, access roads leading to some marking centres were rendered inaccessible. However, despite the recent rains, this has not been the case and markers have been able to make it into marking centres,” he said.
Mthethwa said marking at the 27 marking centres in KZN was expected to be finished towards the end of December, with the results being released on January 7.