Durban - While teacher unions believe teachers have done all they can to ensure Grade 12 pupils are equipped to take on their final school exams, concerns have been raised about the impact of load shedding and damage to schools due to problems in communities.
The Department of Education in KwaZulu-Natal announced the conclusion of the Grade 12 preparatory (trial) examinations that started on September 5 and finished yesterday.
The department said the recent exams proved that the systems it had put in place to ensure the integrity and credibility of the exams were secure, and were working.
“This gives the department confidence as the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination is 33 days away.”
National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa KZN CEO Thirona Moodley said: “We do believe that the teachers have made enough effort to ensure that all the pupils are ready.”
She said teachers in the schools that were affected by floods had gone the extra mile with weekend classes.
“The teachers have completed their work in school, now it is the time for the parents to support their children.” Moodley said her main concern was the disruptions that came with load shedding.
“I am concerned with learners not being able to study in the evening at home without proper lighting. There is also a lot of online learning and studying that they miss out during blackouts.
“Load shedding also comes with a lot of anxiety for learners.
“We are seeing more and more learners being on anxiety medication – on top of exam stress they also have to worry about the uncertainty of electricity,” she said.
In addition to load shedding, the department raised concerns over service-delivery issues that threatened to disrupt school functionality and the examination process.
“It is very disturbing that whenever communities have an issue to raise with authorities, our schools become soft targets, as community members find it easy to disrupt schools in order to raise their service-delivery concerns,” said KZN Education MEC Mbali Frazer.
The MEC urged communities, especially community leaders, to ensure that schools were protected at all times, especially during the end-of-year examinations.
National Teachers’ Union president Sibusiso Malinga said they believed that teachers had done their best to recover from the setbacks imposed by Covid-19 restrictions, the lockdown and the floods in the past year.
“We plead with the pupils to not lose focus during these 30 days of counting down to examinations,” he said.
Parents’ Association of KZN chairperson Vee Gani said there must be commitment and determination from pupils and parents before the exams.
He said the Grade 12 pupils needed to take full advantage of the school holidays, which start on Friday, to prepare.
Gani said that the parents’ role was to create an environment favourable for the children to study.
“Parents are the utmost supporters.”