About 50 Mpumalanga education department examination officials, suspended earlier this year for their alleged role in leaking some grade 12 question papers in 2009, are still drawing salaries, totalling R5-million a month, for doing nothing.
Spokesperson for the department of basic education, Granville Whittle, told theTeacher the department was looking at ways of redeploying the suspended officials to various units within the provincial education department.
But one of the affected officials, who did not want to disclose his name, said that, to date, no one had been redeployed because most felt they would not fit into any division other than the exam unit.
“We refuse to be redeployed because we feel we do not have the necessary skills or expertise to work anywhere except in the exam unit. Besides, it is not clear how this will impact on the issues of salary and conditions of employment, to mention two,” the source said.
Whittle concedes that the matter is complicated as it raises a number of labour-related issues which would have to be negotiated thoroughly with each employer.
The exam scandal delayed the release of the 2009 matric results in the province and compelled Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga to deploy a crack team to take over the running of matric examinations in the province.
The leaked papers were accounting, physical science papers (one and two) and mathematics (one and two).
The team’s major task is to put in place necessary systems to help stabilise and strengthen the provincial examination unit’s capacity to run credible examinations in future.
Nkosinathi Sishi, the national director of examinations, heads the team which will remain in the province until Motshekga “is convinced that the province is capable of running a credible examination” [on its own].
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) in Mpumalanga blasted the suspension of the officials and the deployment of the national team. Sadtu said it was folly on the part of the national department to suspend the entire examination personnel while suspected culprits were facing criminal charges.
The union’s provincial secretary, Walter Hlaise, said it was a “complete waste of the department’s resources” to bring in a new team instead of utilising the skills and the experience of the suspended officials.
The department has enlisted the help of the Hawks to get to the root of what appears to be the province’s perennial problem. The unit’s spokesperson, Musa Zondi, has been quoted as saying: “We are trying to get to the root of the problem. If we have a situation where in one province the same thing keeps on happening over and over again, you then have to give yourself the scope, a much wider scope that will include a number of years …”
theTeacher understands that part of re-configuring the provincial examination unit is to install hi-tech IT security systems that will make it difficult for any rogue element to breach. An official familiar with the process and who spoke on condition of anonymity said: “The new security system would make it easy to disable any gadgets such as USBs, which in the past have been used to copy or download exam question papers or any exam-related material.”
Whittle said the department was happy with the work of the national task team so far, adding that they had “successfully managed the supplementary examinations in February/March 2010 and the senior certificate examinations in April/May 2010”.
He said Umalusi, a quality assurance council, had declared both these examinations as “credible”. Whittle said the department had set up rigorous systems and processes to ensure the credibility and integrity of the examinations in the province.
“This [was] accompanied by training of all personnel, that is ongoing. The national team has been strengthened by the recruitment of four experienced and seasoned examination experts that are deployed to regional offices where the operational activities are managed,” Whittle said.
“In setting up the new examination system, the DBE will ensure that all officials engaged in examinations are security-cleared and, therefore, do not bring with them an element of doubt that may tarnish the image of future examinations in the province,” added Whittle.
Asked when the national task team would hand over the running of the examination to the province, Whittle did not want to commit himself to specific timelines. He said: “This may be a gradual process as the DBE will evaluate the capability of the province to manage specific functions and transfer specific functions to the province.”
This is not the first time Mpumalanga has been rocked by examination-related scandals. In 1998, when the current premier, David Mabuza, was MEC of education, grade 12 results were inflated by 20%, securing the province an overall 72% pass rate.
In 2004, matric results were withheld due to irregularities and, four years later, close to 9 000 learners could not get their results on time as the province failed to submit their results to the national department because information was missing.