South Africa : Matric exams finish on a high note

By Proffesor Ndawonde

Pretoria - Almost 600 000 matriculants across South Africa are this afternoon enjoying the feeling of having completed their 12-years of schooling.

Many will be celebrating with family and friends this evening or leaving for matric holidays at the coast and elsewhere.

However, the stress is not completely off, and there will still be come uncertainty among the youngsters until their results are released on 30 December.

This year, matric results will first be made available to school principals and to learners on 29 December before being published in the morning newspapers on 30 December.

Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said earlier this year the principals would receive them first to check their accuracy before handing them to the learners. By the time they are released in the newspapers there will not be any surprises from other learners.

The 2008 National Senior Certificate Examinations (NSC) ended with a two-hour Mathematics Paper 3 being written in the morning and a three-hour Electrical Technology Paper 2 in the afternoon.

This is the first time that all Grade 12 learners in public schools wrote the same examinations set on the new NSC curriculum. There was no longer a Higher or Standard Grade option and all papers where written on one grade.

This year all matriculants had to choose either mathematics or mathematical literacy and they all had to take Life Orientation which is assessed internally.

A total of 592 000 Grade 12 learners wrote their exams in 6500 examinations centres across the country. - BuaNews