Make no mistake, the leaking of two national senior certificate (NSC) papers in two gateway subjects, (mathematics paper 2 and physical science p2), as well as the life sciences paper, has had devastating effects up and down the system.

It has called into question the management capacity of the department of basic education responsible for this high stakes’ examination. It has damaged the credibility of the NSC examination itself. And it has demoralised the 391,000 candidates who must rewrite the mathematics paper and then 282,000 must show up again for the physical science paper. Think for a moment of the tremendous burden on children with emotional and intellectual disabilities having to raise themselves up again to rewrite these stolen papers...