Nineteen of the state-employed educators involved in last year’s Mpumalanga matric cheating scandal were found guilty of misconduct earlier this month.
The chairperson of the disciplinary committee, Walter Kutumela, says each was fined R3 000 and issued with a written warning.
Out of the 61 educators initially identified to be charged with misconduct by the Department of Education, 32 are state employed and 29 employed at independent schools.
One case against a state-employed educator was withdrawn, while six educators were dismissed from an independent school, East High College — apparently for being unqualified — and the charges against them were therefore aborted.
The cases against the remaining 12 state educators are expected to be concluded by the end of the month, while the 23 employed at independent schools will have to wait until the end of September to hear their fate.
All 11 schools have been deregistered as exam centres for 2005 and 2006. However, this has been suspended for two years, and will not come into effect ‘unless they are found guilty of the same misdemeanour in the future”, says Kutumela.
Each will have a chief invigilator and permanent monitors stationed at their school for the duration of the matric exams. Implicated educators will not be allowed to mark Grade 12 papers for two years.
Kutumela dismissed the suggestion that the educators jointly planned to cheat. ‘The teachers involved in the scandal come from different schools spread across the province. Some of the schools are based in the Highveld while others are in Lowveld regions. It could not have been planned — at least, there is no evidence to back this up,” he says.
The scandal saw Umalusi, the certification body for the matric exams, and the Mpumalanga education department nullifying the results of 843 candidates after they were found guilty of compromising the integrity of last year’s exams. They will, however, have the opportunity to rewrite the affected subjects this year.