On 13 January 2025, Umalusi issued a statement to approve the release of the 2024 end of year national examination results in respect of the: (a) General Education and Training Certificate: Adult Basic Education and Training (GETC: ABET), (b) NATED Report 190/191 (N2 - N3), (c) National Certificate (Vocational) [NC(V)] Levels 2 – 4, and National Senior Certificate (NSC). The statement is available on the Umalusi website (www.umalusi.org.za/media-releases/). 

The statement included the approval of the release of the results of the NSC exam administered by the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI). Umalusi granted the SACAI approval to release the NSC results because the SACAI: 
a) conducted the assessment free from any irregularity that may jeopardise the integrity of the assessment or its outcomes, 
b) complied with the requirements prescribed by the Council for conducting assessments, 
c) applied the standards prescribed by the Council with which a learner is required to comply in order to obtain a certificate, and 
d) complied with every other condition determined by the Council. 

The approval decision was arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence presented at the time. Such evidence was gathered by various role players at different stages of Umalusi’s quality assurance cycle.  

After approving the release of results, Umalusi has been receiving a number of queries from learners and parents regarding the assessment outcomes of the 2024 SACAI NSC examinations. The queries are mainly about the discrepancies between the final marks and the marks achieved by the learners during the year.  

Umalusi advises learners and parents to direct their queries relating to the costs of and timeliness for viewing, re-marking or re-checking of examination scripts, re-writing of examinations and other NSC exam-related processes to the SACAI. That is because the SACAI, as a private assessment body, operates under its own policies which have built-in mechanisms for complaints to be lodged whenever a learner or parent is dissatisfied with assessment outcomes or procedural aspects of the outcomes.  

It is worth reiterating that Umalusi subjected the 2024 NSC exam administered by the SACAI to the following quality assurance processes:  
a) external moderation of question papers and site-based assessments or school based assessment (SBA) to ensure the maintenance of standards of assessment, 
b) audit of the system to conduct, administer and manage the examinations to determine the readiness of the whole system, 
c) monitoring of the writing of the examinations across sampled examination centres to determine the credibility of the examinations, 
d) participation in marking guidelines standardisation meetings in selected subjects to ensure that the marking process is accurate and reliable,  
e) verification of quality of marking in sampled subjects to ensure accuracy and reliability, and 
f)  standardisation of examination marks to ensure comparability and consistency in learner performance across years. 

The abovementioned quality assurance processes were applied consistently across all the 24 subjects linked to the NSC examination administered and managed by the SACAI. Umalusi wishes to assure all stakeholders that the standardisation process for the school-based assessment (SBA) and external examination marks is based on longestablished principles that are equally applied to the results from all assessment bodies that fall under the Umalusi purview. The principles are available on the website of Umalusi as is the case with the other Umalusi quality assurance processes that are used in conjunction with standardisation principles. 

For detailed information about the process of standardisation of SBA and external examination marks, please refer to the Umalusi presentation: 
https://www.umalusi.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Standardisation-o…;

Concerning accreditation status of the SACAI, this body was granted full accreditation status by Umalusi with effect from 1 October 2022 to assess the General Education and Training Certificate: Adult Basic Education and Training (GETC: ABET) and NSC examinations. The rationale behind accreditation of private education and training institutions and private assessment bodies is to ensure that they have the capacity to deliver and assess qualifications registered on the GFETQSF and are doing so to the expected standards and quality. 

Since the NSC is assessed by three assessment bodies, namely the SACAI, IEB and Department of Basic Education (DBE), learners and parents are advised to make an informed decision in terms of which assessment body to register with for the NSC examinations. 

Umalusi reserves the right to amend this statement.