Following the Department of Basic Education’s announcement that matric results will no longer be published, experts have shared their viewpoints on how this will change the lives of learners and the media industry.
The Department of Basic Education has announced that the publication of matric results will not happen this year.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the spokesperson for the Department of Basic Education, Elijah Mhlanga, said the usual practice of publishing the National Senior Certificate (NSC) results on public platforms (media platforms) would not occur in 2022.
In previous years, there had been incidents of children committing suicide because of matric results being published in the media.
Some believe that this change in the release of matric results will help lower suicide numbers associated with the release of matric results.
When the education department made this announcement, it cited the Protection of Personal Information Act as the reason, saying releasing learners’ personal information would be in contravention of the act.
The Parents Association of KZN is amongst other civil organisations that have welcomed the decision.
Education expert Dr. Susan Van Rensburg said:
I would say it’s the right to knowledge and we need a huge debate on television about who’s actually the owner of this knowledge because I feel it’s an investment in human capital and the taxpayer invests in the future of their country and therefore I think they are entitled to know.
Director of Media Monitoring, William Bird also shared how this was how newspapers made extra advertising revenue and this change will be nothing but a big blow.
Bird even mentioned that this will be extremely hard for an industry that is already ailing.