The Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) failure to comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act last year means the matric class of 2024 will not see their National Senior Certificate (NSC) results published in newspapers.
The Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) failure to comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act last year means the matric class of 2024 will not see their National Senior Certificate (NSC) results published in newspapers.
According to the Information Regulator of South Africa (IR), an Infringement Notice and an Enforcement Notice were issued to the department on November 4.
This is after the regulator’s assessment found that the department was in breach of the conditions for the lawful processing of personal information by failing to obtain consent for the publication of matric results from the learners or that of parents and guardians of the grade 12s that sat for the 2023 NSC exams.
“The IR found that no legal justification existed for the DBE to continue with the publication of the results in the newspapers. It directed that the results of the 2024 matriculants should not be published in the newspapers, and must make these results available to the learners using methods that are compliant with POPIA, such as each learner obtaining their result from the school or using the secure SMS platform of the DBE which enables each learner to access their results confidentially.
“In the Enforcement Notice, the IR has directed the department to obtain the consent of learners or the parents and guardians of learners who will write the matric examination in 2025 before publishing their results in newspapers,” said the regulator.
The department must also, among others, develop a system which will enable it to obtain the consent of the learners or their guardians before the publication of their matric results in newspapers.
“The IR has directed that the department should not publish the results of the 2025 matriculants if the Enforcement Notice instructions are not complied with,” it added.
DBE spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said the department was handling the matter internally at the moment.
“At the right time we will make public our detailed response,” said Mhlanga.
The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) welcomed IR’s decision to issue infringement and enforcement notices stating it will ensure that the privacy and dignity of learners is protected.
“The publishing of the results in mass publications does not bring any educational benefit to the learners.
Instead, it puts them under undue pressure. We call on the DBE to abide by the enforcement notice issued by the IR,” said Sadtu national spokesperson Nomusa Cembi.
National Teachers' Organisation of South Africa’s president, Basil Manuel said they were aware of the notices to the department, an issue which has become a debate.
“One would have thought that with the resources the department has it would have properly checked for this and dealt with it early. If there are people who are objecting to this then why not just drop it? Yes it has been a tradition but times have changed and traditions are man-made and can change,” he said.
Cape Times
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