Minister Gwarube confirms leak of seven Grade 12 exam papers, investigation ongoing into breach
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has confirmed the leak of seven matric examination papers to matric pupils in Gauteng prior to the exams.
Image: GCIS
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has announced Grade 12 pupils at seven Tshwane high schools had access to National Senior Certificate examination papers for three subjects prior to the exams.
She said in a briefing on Thursday that it was determined that the leak could only have come from the Department of Basic Education's offices.
Further education revealed that the breach extended beyond a single paper, based on the interviews with 26 learners that were conducted.
She said that of the 162 exam papers set by the DBE, a total of 7 papers were accessed including English P1, P2 and P3, Mathematics P1 and P2 and Physical Science P1 and P2.
The exam papers were shared via a USB storage device and confined to seven schools in Tshwane.
She said it was further established that the source of the leak is a DBE employee who has a child in Grade 12 and she received the papers from another official in the exams unit.
Gwarube said the breach was discovered through the diligence of markers during the marking process who found that a matric pupil's response to a question in the English Home Language paper 2 was very similar to the answer in the marking guideline.
The minister said a national investigative task team will be tasked with investigating the exact source of the breach, identify all learners who accessed the question papers and to confirm that the breach was localised to the schools identified.
The matric exam marking process is currently underway in provinces across the country and is progressing well, Gwarube added.