Basic education minister Angie Motshekga says a law governing the protection of personal information that came into force in 2021 means that matric results will no longer be published on public media platforms, as has been previously the case.
Student bodies have long called for the state to refrain from publishing results of individuals on public platforms, saying that it contributes to depression and suicide.
The minister said to comply with the provisions of the Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia), all learners would be required to obtain their statements of results from their respective schools.
Motshekga said Popia holds that everyone has the right to privacy.
“This right to privacy includes a right to protection against the unlawful collection, retention, dissemination and use of personal information,” Motshekga said during a media briefing on Tuesday to outline the state’s readiness for the school year.
“In this way, every learner’s personal information, with regard to the outcomes of the 2021 exams, will be protected,” the minister said.
But the decision to suspend the publication of the results on media platforms could be a blow for many learners who may be unable to immediately travel to their schools.
The matric results are due to be released on January 21.
She also said her department would intensify its recovery programme to ensure that all pupils returned to school and caught up after two years of disruptions due to Covid-19.
“In 2021 we recorded a significant decline in the number of schools that were closed and reopened due to Covid-19. This can be attributed in part to the successful vaccination programme of education personnel from June 2021.
“Another important factor that has contributed to the relative stability in the sector is the adherence to health and safety protocols,” Motshekga said, suggesting that the department did not envisage major disruptions in 2022.
The government moved to close schools over the last two years in a bid to curb the spread of Covid-19, despite research showing that schools were not primary infection sites.
The move reduced some schools to online learning, while many poor schools and pupils that did not have the resources for remote classes had to completely forgo learning. According to a National Income Dynamics Study — Coronavirus Rapid Mobile (Nids-Cram) survey, a research project involving 31 academics from several SA universities published in 2021, schoolchildren in poor areas learnt between 50% and 75% less in 2020 than they did the year before.
The research made the distressing finding that the gains that SA had made to improve the reading scores of young children when compared with their international counterparts had been eroded by the pandemic. While a Grade 2 child would, on the previous performance trajectory, have been able to identify 48 letters correctly at the end of the year, this fell to 36 in tests done among an Eastern Cape cohort of children.
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