Limpopo court orders release of 50 matric results after 'group copying' findings set aside
The High Court found the education department never established that the Baphutheng learners cheated, ordering unredacted results and certificates within weeks.
Fifty former matric learners from Baphutheng Senior Secondary School in Limpopo have been cleared of examination irregularities, and the Limpopo High Court has ordered the provincial education department to release their withheld 2024 results.
As IOL reported on 8 October, Acting Judge Masilo handed down the order on 1 October. The court set aside the disciplinary findings against the learners, the former acting head of department’s decision to adopt those findings, and the MEC for Education’s decision to dismiss their appeal.
The order requires the department to release the learners’ statements of results within five days. Those statements must be complete and unredacted, with no annotation or suggestion of an examination irregularity. Their formal National Senior Certificates must be issued within 30 days, without any adverse endorsement.
The learners’ results were withheld after similarities in their answers to Business Studies Paper 1 and Economics Paper 2 were treated as evidence of group copying. The learners denied cheating throughout, saying the similarities came from the teaching methods used at their under-resourced school.
SECTION27, which represented the learners, said teachers used singing, group repetition and recitation to help learners memorise concepts and essay structures because the school had limited access to textbooks and other learning materials. The organisation said there was no direct evidence that learners had copied from one another during the examinations, and that educators, invigilators and the school principal were not questioned about the similarities in the scripts.
The court also found that the former acting head of department had communicated findings against the learners even though the body legally required to make the relevant decision and recommendation had not done so. The learners spent almost two years without their results after being found guilty through what SECTION27 described as an unlawful process.
“The department’s incompetence resulted in trauma for the learners, wasting two years of their lives that they will never get back,” the organisation said.
SECTION27 said the case highlighted the impact of inequality on learners at under-resourced schools, and that teaching methods developed in response to that inequality should never become another way of punishing learners for the inequality they already endure.
The practical effect for the 50 learners is that their results and certificates now carry no adverse endorsement, which matters for university applications, bursaries, learnerships and entry-level jobs that require a National Senior Certificate. The court’s order also places the department’s internal handling of the matter on the record: the finding against the learners was communicated before the body legally required to decide on it had done so.
A National Senior Certificate is the minimum qualification most South African employers, universities and colleges ask for. A withheld result is not a neutral administrative hold. It closes doors for as long as it stands, and for learners who write in one year, the following academic year is the one they lose.
Source: IOL, Cheaters cleared: Limpopo court orders release of 50 matric results
