Number of factors could potentially impact exams - Basic Education
Basic Education officials say while the final matric exams got off to a good start, protest action, extreme weather events and load shedding could potentially impact the writing of the papers.
Dr Rufus Poliah, the department's chief director for exams, says since the start of the NSC examinations, 119 writing centres were affected by power cuts.
Poliah was speaking at a media briefing in Pretoria on Sunday on how matrics have been coping so far.
"In the case of information technology, we had two centres that were affected by load shedding, but here again, all learners were able to write the exam. In total, the number of learners that were impacted in some way by load shedding was 3 956."
READ: KZN matric final exams off to smooth start
He says service delivery protests prevented some pupils from writing their papers in KZN.
"In the Impendle area in Umgungundlovu District, there was a community protest and the South African Police Services had to be called in to escort our officials to school to get question papers to the school and I think the point we want to stress to communities is do not use our learners to achieve your own objectives."
Gunshots fired in the Etwatwa area in Gauteng recently also stopped 53 learners from writing their exams.