SADTU statement on the court ruling on the rewrite of leaked matric exam papers
11 December 2020
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) welcomes the decision by the High Court, Pretoria Division to set aside the decision by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to have all learners who wrote the National Senior Certificate (Matric) mathematics and physical science PAPER 2 to be rewritten.
SADTU, as one of the organizations that filed the court application to interdict the Department, is vindicated by the court’s decision which found that the Minister’s decision was irregular and unlawful.
The judgement by Judge Norman Davis has saved thousands of learners from a grave injustice that would live with learners for the rest of their lives. “As a representative of the teachers to whom learners are entrusted, we could not divorce the Union from the interest of both learners and teachers,” said SADTU General Secretary, Mugwena Maluleke.
SADTU was of the belief that the decision to have all rewrite was unfair and premature because the investigation had not been concluded. Based on the initial investigation which showed that the number of learners who may have seen the paper are less than 195 out of the 339 000 who wrote the maths paper which translate to less than 0, 06% and an even lower percentage in respect of the physical science paper, there was no basis for a national rewrite.