Minister of Basic Education, Siviwe Gwarube. Picture: Gallo Images/Lefty Shivambu The basic education department has confirmed irregularities in six matric exam scripts in Gauteng. The department on Wednesday confirmed that it had identified a breach during the marking process for the 2025 National Senior Certificate (NSC) final examinations.
Addressing the media at an urgent briefing on Thursday, following the identification of an examination breach during the marking of the 2025 papers, Gwarube said it was the markers’ diligence that led to the detection of the breach. Gwarube stated that markers initially flagged an unusual similarity between the answers provided by a candidate for the English home language paper 2 and the answers in the marking guide. Gwarube added that the breach involved a few individual learners across seven schools in the Pretoria area.
She said after interviewing at least 26 learners, many admitted to gaining access to the question papers before writing their final exams. “The learners interviewed admitted having prior access to both the English home language paper 2 question paper and the marking guideline. “Upon studying the question paper, our investigators concluded that it could only have originated from the national department of basic education’s offices.
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“Further investigation revealed that the breach extended beyond a single paper,” Gwarube said. She added that the spread appeared to be confined to identified pupils at seven schools in a specific area of Pretoria.
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