CONTRARY to reports in the newspaper on Monday, the Eastern Cape trial exams certainly did not get off to a smooth start. On Thursday August 28 pupils wrote the computer applications technology (Cat) practical paper.
To say the least, the paper was a shambles, and pupils and teachers were left aghast and very upset by this poor quality, error-ridden paper. Without going into an agonising analysis of the paper, it must be reported that the paper was strewn with grammatical errors which made many questions difficult even for teachers to interpret.
Some questions were so poorly worded that it was impossible to decipher what was being asked. In many cases, diagrams of the expected solutions did not match the questions, throwing the whole paper into disarray.
In many questions, the text did not match the data produced in the data files or vice versa. To crown it all, some extra data files were provided, one of which provided nearly 10% of the whole paper's solutions!
If the Eastern Cape Education Department is going to take education seriously, then I would urge it not to cast this off as a small hiccough. Teachers and pupils spend the year (and previous years) to prepare adequately for these trial and final examinations.
Ironically the examiner very publicly "advertises" that he is the examiner on social media platforms. This is a time for the examiner, moderator and the department as a whole to hang their heads in shame and apologise to the pupils they claim to care for.
Please, let schools who feel confident enough to do so, set their own papers and maintain appropriate standards for the sake of our pupils. This paper did nothing to prepare the pupils for their final exams, instead it provided the very worst in terms of shattering the pupils' confidence.
Roy Smith, Port Elizabeth