End of year exams for Grade 10 and Grade 11 have been scrapped for 2020.
Instead Basic Education Department director-general Mathanzima Mweli has directed schools to set tests for these critical grades to ease pass requirements, as schools grapple with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mweli said in a circular: “No common examinations/tests to be administered in Grades 10 and 11.”
The school-set “controlled” tests should only cover what a school has been able to teach during the pandemic-hit year, and not the entire syllabus.
“Controlled tests should only be set on content taught, content not taught cannot be assessed,” Mweli continued.
This meant that schools that have taught just a portion of the curriculum should test learners on the little that the learners learnt.
Teaching and learning has been unequal between rich and poor schools during the lockdown, as many pupils from poorer communities had no access to online learning.
Mweli also has conceded that not all schools were up to scratch to write exams.