Johannesburg - Lobby group AfriForum is helping four high school pupils in their bid to get Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga to reverse the decision that two Grade 12 exam papers be rewritten.
AfriForum and four Pretoria matric candidates will be at the North Gauteng High Court on Wednesday on an urgent basis in an effort to get Motshekga’s decision that the maths paper 2 and physical science paper 2 be rewritten declared unconstitutional.
Lawyer Willie Spies, who is bringing the application on behalf of four pupils, said the application was set down for Wednesday, but some lawyers who represent the unions suggested the matter stand down to Thursday. It was thus not yet certain on which of these days it would be heard, he said. The two exam papers were leaked. Two pupils fighting this decision are from Gereformeerde Gekombineerde Skool Dirk Postma, one is from Montana High School and another one is from Afrikaans Hoer Seunskool in Pretoria.
In her founding affidavit, Grade 12 pupil Lienke Spies, 18, said she wanted the court to interdict the department from destroying scripts for the exams and to also declare the decision to rewrite invalid and unconstitutional.
Natasha Venter, adviser for education rights at AfriForum, said the decision to rewrite the two exams would unfairly disadvantage approximately 400 000 matrics who had written the exam in an honest manner. Educational psychologist and lecturer at the University of Pretoria, Irma Eloff, said in her affidavit that she was concerned about the pupils.
“The despair and stress caused by having to rewrite these two examinations may, in all likelihood, have a negative effect on their performance in the rewritten examination, and therefore not provide a truthful reflection of their knowledge and competences in these two subjects,” Eloff said.
The SA Democratic Teachers Union said it would also take the department to court over the rewrite. By the end of Monday it had still not filed its papers.
The department has indicated it would defend the court action.
The Star