Thousands of National Senior Certificate (NSC) candidates will sit for the first written examinations on Monday.
The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) said 73 846 candidates would write the exams, of which 62 361 were full-time candidates and 11 485 part-time.
On Monday, English Home Language, First Additional Language, and Second Additional Language papers will be written. A total of 124 papers will be written over the exam period.
Education MEC David Maynier said Mathematical Literacy was the subject with the most candidates at 49 672.
Seven subjects have a single candidate writing. They are Hebrew Second Additional Language, Zulu Home Language, Latin Second Additional Language, Sepedi First Additional Language, Sepedi Home Language, Sesotho First Additional Language, and Sport and Exercise Science.
The department has contracted 1 889 invigilators for the 478 examination centres. About 870 answer scripts are expected to be marked by the 3 313 markers across 11 marking centres.
“Applicants must also write a competency test, and only applicants who achieve 60% and above in the tests are considered for appointment as marking officials,” Maynier said.
The invigilators and markers received training this month.
“With exams of this scale, it is crucial that we not face any disruptions. We appeal to all social organisations, political groups and communities to ensure that exams can take place without disruption, and not to compromise our matrics’ chances in any way,” Maynier said.
Department of Correctional Services (DCS) regional commissioner Delekile Klaas said 21 inmates would sit for the exams, at the Brandvlei Youth Centre Independent School.
The facility, at the Brandvlei Correctional Centre, is the only DCS-registered school in the province for the NSC exams.
These candidates are registered to write Afrikaans, Xhosa, English FAL, Life Orientation, Mathematical Literacy, Life Sciences, Geography, Tourism and Business Studies.
“We have successfully hosted the NSC examinations since 2015, without incident or irregularity. The Western Cape NSC class achieved a 94.7% pass rate in the 2021 NSC examinations. The best-performing learner nationally in 2021 was a candidate of the Western Cape school in Brandvlei,” Klaas said.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga will announce the national results on January 19, next year, and individual results will be made available at schools and online on January, 20.