As the final 2024 National Senior Certificate Exams (NSC) rapidly approaches d-day on Monday 21 October, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education (DOE) ensured that this year’s crop of matriculants will be able to take on the examinations without any incident.
The KZN examination system is the biggest in the country with 6,343 invigilators managing sessions in 6 710 examination rooms with 172 433 full time and 18 019 part time candidates. MEC for Education Sipho Hlomuka said that the department is “combat-ready” to take on this mammoth task.
He said there will be 27 morning and 27 afternoon sessions. KZN will print 120 question papers, totalling 30 million prints. The distribution of examination material will be done through 13 nodal points and 103 distribution and collection centres.
MEC Hlomuka said the Department was very encouraged by the results of the class of 2023, which made KZN the second best performing province in the country. However, they understand that the Department needs to work hard not only to maintain this result but to reach even greater education outcomes. With this goal in mind, the Department hosted a number of programmes to aid the class of 2024.
Hlomuka said: “In order to ensure that the Class of 2024 is ready for the upcoming examinations, the Department started the year by developing the 2024 Academic Improvement Plan, whose objectives were in the main, to Improve pass percentage from 86% to a maximum of 100% or a minimum of 90%. As a province, we always say that our aim and target is to pass all candidates who sit for the final exam pass, thereby obtaining 100% performance. The reality though, is that there are other factors, which sometimes make it difficult to pass all our learners in the system, hence we say, if we regrettably do not attain 100%, we need to ensure that we do not obtain less than 90%, which will still be a great improvement from the 2023 National Senior Certificate Examinations Results.”
Driven by the 90% minimum target for all Districts in 2024, the Department hosted a Winter Classes Programme which was also aimed at preparing learners and ensuring that they are ready, “The tuition that started on 26 June 2023 until 07 July 2023, sought to facilitate effective curriculum coverage for both teachers and learners so that all school’s complete tuition by 30 August 2024. Providing a platform for schools to cluster learners/schools of the same level of performance and deal with common challenges, the Winter Camps accommodated 98 975 learners in 1001 winter school centres,” said MEC Hlomuka.
The Department, had spring boot camps where learners were given extra tuition especially in the subject areas that were identified as challenging. Currently all districts are engaging in the final push to support matriculants through weekend tuition sessions.
“Marking will commence on Sunday, 1 December and conclude on Tuesday, 10 December in all 32 marking centres for the 2024 National Senior Certificate examination. Marking centres will close on Wednesday, 18 December after the collection of answer scripts. The National Minister of Education ,Siviwe Gwarube will release the NSC results on Wednesday, 15 January 2025. Districts will collect their statements of results from the Provincial Head Office on 15 January and release them to schools on the morning of Thursday, 16 January,” said MEC Hlomuka
In case of inclement weather, SAPS and SADF services are on standby to assist with distributing and collecting examination scripts. The Department of Education also hired four-wheel-drive vehicles to use in case of challenges.
