Umalusi is responsible for ensuring the quality of education and assessments in South Africa. They oversee various examining bodies, including the Department of Basic Education (DBE), the Independent Examinations Board (IEB), and the SACAI.
Following the release of the 2024 National Senior Certificate (NSC), several candidates have enquiries related to their final matric marks with many having found discrepancies in marks.
Umalusi instructed SACAI matriculants to contact the assessment body directly. This is because SACAI, as a private assessment body, has its internal processes for handling such matters. This includes information regarding re-writes, re-marks and script viewing.
Umalusi advises learners and parents to direct their queries relating to the costs of and timeliness for viewing, re-marking or re-checking of examination scripts, re-writing of examinations and other NSC exam-related processes to the SACAI.
The body reiterated that the 2024 SACAI NSC exams underwent extensive quality assurance measures, including external moderation of question papers and school-based assessments, system audits and monitoring of exam writing. This is in addition to participation in marking guideline standardisation, verification of marking quality, and standardisation of exam marks.
These processes were consistently applied across all 24 SACAI NSC subjects.
Umalusi said that the standardisation process for school-based assessments and external exam marks follows established principles applied equally to all assessment bodies under its purview.
The body added that SACAI received full accreditation from Umalusi in October 2022 to assess the GETC: ABET and NSC examinations. This is still the case for 2024.
The rationale behind the accreditation of private education and training institutions and private assessment bodies is to ensure that they have the capacity to deliver and assess qualifications registered on the GFETQSF and are doing so to the expected standards and quality.
Umalusi has advised learners and parents to make informed decisions regarding which of the three assessment bodies they register with for NSC exams.
