Education minister Kader Asmal has withdrawn conditions banning newspapers from making any editorial comment on the initial matriculation results released by his department later this year.
In a joint statement after the SA National Editors Forum (Sanef) met the minister in Pretoria, both parties agreed that the conditions be withdrawn.
Sanef requested the meeting to voice its concerns after Asmal, in a letter to editors last week, laid down five conditions that he said newspapers would have to comply with if they wanted to be sent an embargoed electronic draft of the 2002 results at 6am on December 26 (for release 24 hours later).
In terms of the last of these, newspapers that appear before the official education department’s results briefing — scheduled for 1pm on December 27 — must not carry ”any editorial comment on the results”.
Sanef chairman Mathatha Tsedu said on Wednesday that following discussions with Asmal, the body accepted the minister’s assurance that his letter had not been intended to interfere with the duties of editors.
”Both parties therefore agreed that the condition that there should be no editorial comment on the results is withdrawn and Sanef has taken the minister’s concerns, and the spirit within which they were raised on board,” he said.
Asmal had explained that his statement ”by no means intended to bar editors from exercising their rights as they had thought, but was grown out of concerns raised by provinces about consequences of some of the editorial comment on children, especially as those would be based on raw and incomplete information”.
Education representative Molantwane Likhethe was not immediately available for comment. – Sapa