Uncategorized
THE matric class of 2022 has officially commenced writing their final National Senior Certificate examinations on Monday.
While the Department of Basic Education vowed to provide smooth matric final examinations, the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) said it remained concerned about the rolling Eskom blackouts which would negatively impact learners throughout the process of writing final examinations.
This year’s matric cohort had Grades 10 and 11 impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted schooling.
The impact of disrupted education following the COVID-19 outbreak was devastating, with learners falling between 75% and a full school year behind where they should be, according to a 2021 report by humanitarian organisation, UNICEF.
Rotational attendance, sporadic school closures, and days off for specific grades, resulted in school children losing 54% of learning time.
21-year-old Boitshepo Makgakgane from Kgosithebe combined school in North West, said that load shedding is affecting her negatively, especially at night.
“Load shedding is affecting me negatively because I have eye problems. Studying at night is difficult if there is no electricity,” said Makgakgane.
Makgakgane said that she has been attending extra sessions to help her prepare better for the final examinations.
“I’m having extra classes for 2 hours every day to help me with things I don’t understand. I give economics a lot of attention because it’s the subject that is difficult to understand and the way they ask questions is challenging.”
Makgakgane said difficult subjects are giving her anxiety attacks at night.
Kgolothuto Secondary School learner, Lerato Seetsi, said rotational schooling has disadvantaged the class of 2022, “as we now have to learn everything that we missed, which adds a load to the grade 12 work.”
Seetsi said that writing the first paper was scary.
“It was a scary experience, the reason being this is the last paper, as I was writing and I was having these negative thoughts of ‘what if I fail’.”
The Kgolathuto learner said that she attends school every day and spends four hours on one subject then sleep.
“I am mentally exhausted because there’s a lot of work to do and we are not given any breaks. We attend school every day, and I spend four hours on one subject, then I sleep.”
“I don’t exercise because I don’t have the time.”
Seetsi gives Maths and Physical Science more attention, because “those are the subjects that are given more attention at our school.”
Meanwhile, Matthews Moloto from Kgabo Secondary School in Limpopo said that load shedding disturbs his studying routine.
“I like to study at night, and most of the time we experience load shedding at night. I struggle with keeping up with my routine and it is very difficult to study using a light candle.”
Moloto further said that when there is no power, he has anxieties as he feels like he’s losing valuable time.
“I get stressed a lot, especially when I check the power outage schedule. I feel like I’m losing out when we don’t have electricity.”
The examinations will end on December 7, 2022.
The marking of scripts will start on December 9th and run until December 22nd, 2022, in 19 marking centres spread throughout Gauteng the province.
INSIDE EDUCATION