With just a day left before the release of the matric results, Cosas and the National Department of Education are engaged in a war of words over the release of results in the Western Cape.
Congress of South African Students (Cosas) alleges that they reached an agreement with the council of the quality assurance body Umalusi that the results’ release date in Western Cape would be pushed back from the 4TH of January, and that no results would be published in any news media – print or digital.
But the Education Department is unaware of such an arrangement and Basic Education minister Angie Motshekga is expected to release the results today.
Cosas’s biggest gripe was the publishing of exam results in newspapers.
Matrics in the Western Cape will not have to wait for their results, but will find that their results will only be published in the newspapers by the Western Cape Education Department on Saturday.
Cosas remained opposed to the widespread publication of results, stating that students should access results when they want to and privately.
Cosas president, John Machecke had this to say:
We held a number of engagements with the department because we want to ensure the quality of the results and eradicate any errors
The Education Department however said it didn’t need Cosas’s permission to do its job.
A total of 796 542 full-time and part-time pupils took part in the national senior certificate examinations.