By KEDIBONE MOLAETSI
More than one million learners will be sitting for their National Senior Certificate final examinations across the country on Thursday. The combined examination for National Senior Certificate (NSC) candidates makes this the largest cohort with 1 058 699 candidates.
North West Premier, Prof Job Mokgoro described the year 2020 calendar which came with the COVID-19 pandemic as a true character test for learners especially the matriculants. However, Mokgoro believes that learners will prevail and come out victorious from their final year examinations.
“The character of the learners has never ever been tested like the Class of 2020 due to coronavirus. They had to endure what no other generation of learners has ever endured.
“They went into a lockdown with uncertainty, losing learning time as well as the re-opening of schools under difficult conditions with new measures of wearing masks, sanitizing and keeping social distance,” he said.
Mokgoro further said despite all the difficulties, learners reached this stage. He added that they have demonstrated that they will certainly put North West right at the number one position.
“We admire your courage, determination, and well-done in defeating the pandemic. We know you’re going to do even better in your examination. We also want to pay our gratitude to MEC Wendy Matsemela for her leadership and guidance during this period.
“We also thank educators who had to go through the unchartered territories as they navigated their way to assist learners to complete their curriculum by racing against time. Despite all these challenges, matriculants and educators remained focused and committed,” said Mokgoro.
He added that a true character can only be built from tough circumstances and that’s why he believes that the Matric Class of 2020 will do well. Mokgoro wished everyone all the best in this year’s final examinations.
“We also thanked the parents and communities at large for their support to learners through programs such as “Ngwana Sejo wa Tlhakanelwa”. We urge parents to assist learners to study hard, take deserving breaks, to eat and rest well as this is the good recipe for passing examinations,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Portfolio Committee Chairperson on Basic Education,
Bongiwe Mbinqo-Gigaba said: “We would like to wish all candidates the best of luck with the upcoming final examinations. We urge them to continue working hard and to keep their focus.
“These examinations are the culmination of the last 12 years of schooling. We know it has been a challenging academic year, but we support you no matter what. It was a very unusual academic year for this class.”
She added that the committee has been assured by both the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and the Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training (Umalusi) that it is all systems go for the examinations.
Mbinqo-Gigaba said the sector has had to drastically increase its efforts to ensure that the Class of 2020 is fully-prepared to sit for the NSC examination, despite the disruptions of the academic year. She said the committee commends the DBE for providing additional support to learners because of the loss of academic time due to Covid-19.
“Supplementary material, holiday classes, after-school programs, teacher content training, placement of volunteer teachers, as well as alternative (differentiated) ways of grouping and teaching learners were provided to assist this cohort.”
“The sector has placed a strong emphasis on areas such as psycho-social support for learners and teachers, curriculum coverage monitoring, extra school-based tuition, such as morning, afternoon, and weekend classes, ICT utilisation on television, radio, and web-based platforms; and peer-led study groups,” she said.
The June examinations for both full and part-time candidates had to be cancelled due to the outbreak of Covid-19. Grade 12 learners are expected to sit for their examination from 5 November to 15 December 2020.
The Guardian 