UMALUSI, the Quality Council for General and Further Education and Training, has established a three-member independent panel to investigate the reasons that led to the inclusion of the “problematic” question in the matric Maths Paper 2 that was written earlier this month.
The apparent error in Maths Paper 2 sparked an outcry as teachers and pupils alleged something was wrong with question 5.1, which was a trigonometry question for seven marks.
The three-member panel will be chaired by former chief director and deputy director-general and head of the Western Cape provincial Education Department, Penelope Vinjevold.
The panel will include full Professor of Maths and Applied Maths in the Astrophysics Research Centre of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, Professor Sudan Hansraj.
Contract lecturer in the University of Cape Town’s Mathematics Department, Professor Nic Heideman, has been named the third panel member.
Specifically, the panel has been tasked with investigating how the error crept in and why it was not detected between examiners, and internal and external moderators up to the printing stage.
“In other words, the focus is on the entire value chain: all the processes that the question paper was subjected to during the stages of its development, quality assurance and printing,” read a statement issued by Umalusi on Monday.
The panel has the mandate to fully investigate the matter and submit its final report to Umalusi.
The report is expected to be publicly shared on January 16 during the media briefing on the approval of the release of the 2022 matric exam results.
Umalusi CEO Mafu Rakometsi said that the council wants to restate two points. The first, is that the investigation will in no way delay the release of the NSC results.
As per the schedule, the results will be approved on January 16 2023 by the executive committee, and the results will then be released to the public by the Minister of Education on January 19, 2023.
“Umalusi also wants to reassure the public that it will do everything humanly possible to ensure that no candidate is disadvantaged by the error in Question 5.1,” Rakometsi said.