Cape Town - Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has hailed the first official day of the 2022 National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams as forging ahead without any major challenges.
This is the largest NSC group to date, with more than 900 000 candidates.
More than 794 000 candidates sat for the 2 hour English Paper 1 in 6 800 centres across the country on Monday.
Motshekga said she was pleased with how the exams were administered on the first day and appealed to members of the public to continue to support the NSC candidates throughout the exam period which ends in the first week of December.
She was speaking at Nellmapius Secondary School in Mamelodi, Pretoria, assessing the readiness of pupils and teachers.
““Despite the rain in parts of KwaZulu-Natal there were no reported disruptions in any province.
The Class of 2022 has shown resilience and perseverance, it was the worst affected in terms of the impact of Covid-19,” said Motshekga.
Today more than 165 360 candidates will write Economics P1, also a 2-hour paper.
Concerns have been expressed by unions about the rolling power cuts, after Eskom refused to exempt exam venues from load shedding.
However, Motshekga said exams were written during the day, exam venues had enough natural light and the two practical exams, computer applications technology (CAT) and information technology (IT) that depend on electricity were concluded last week.
Tshwane West pupils who were affected after computers were damaged when power returned following load shedding will be given a second chance.
Western Cape Education MEC David Maynier said the first session of the written matric exams got off to a good start in the province.
“We thank the people of the Western Cape for their assistance in not disrupting proceedings and appeal to all residents to make our matrics the VIPs of our province for the next few weeks while they complete the exams,” said Maynier.
KwaZulu-Natal Education spokesperson Sihle Mlotshwa said the first day also went very well in all their 12 districts, except in one school under the Umgungundlovu District where candidates had to start a bit late because of community protests.
The North West also said all systems were well placed. Other provinces are expecting to give updates on Tuesday.
Cape Times