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Hot on the heels of a matric group cheating scandal that clouded this year’s exam results announcement by basic education minister Angie Motshekga, a new scandal has emerged, alleging pupils in a North West school paid R800 bribes to teachers in exchange for passes.
While an investigation by the provincial education department is pending, Corruption Watch views all acts of cheating the education system in a serious light – both the pupils and teachers who connived are thus zeros of the week, and our first for 2015.
According to a report in the Sowetan, the department said it was going through examination scripts of several pupils at Motshwane High School in Maboloka to determine which pupils had been involved in the alleged bribery. The pupils fingered were in grade 10 last year, and were allegedly boasting to their colleagues about paying the bribes, when the conversation was recorded by another grade 10 pupil who failed the grade. The recording was then handed over to officials in the department, with the pupil demanding that he too be promoted to grade 11 like the alleged culprits.
"The department stepped in to investigate the matter on the basis of the allegations that were surfacing," spokesman Brian Setswambung told the newspaper. "It is alleged that some learners were involved in buying report cards from teachers."
Setswambung added that until the matter had been finalised, the pupils concerned would remain in the grades they had been in last year.
Motshwane principal Nomsa Nonyane confirmed that all pupils were asked to return their report cards for review. An SGB member was quoted by Sowetan as threatening that the school would be shut down if the department did not pass all pupils. Parents have also demanded that the implicated teachers be fired – but in our view both parties would be guilty of corruption, so pupils should not get off lightly.
The scandal happens against the backdrop of a potentially massive dilemma for the national department, that of group cheating in several provinces during last year’s matric exams. Quality assurance body Umalusi made the shocking announcement that some schools in Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal – which apparently had the highest number of cases – had been implicated in allegations that teachers helped pupils gain access to answer sheets for guaranteed passes.
The scale of the problem is not yet known as an investigation is underway, but the department has already stated that those found guilty would face a ban of three years before being allowed to re-write their exams. The investigation is expected to be completed in March.
