Preparation for the 2023 National Senior Certificate examinations commenced almost 18 months ago so as to ensure that all processes are in place to administer the first examination question on 30th October 2023. The plans that were put in place over this period to prepare for this all important examination involved the following:
(a) Setting, internal moderation, editing, translation and final approval of the 162 question papers required for this examination.
(b) Registration of the candidates that will be writing this examination on the Examination Computer system. Finally, 717 377 full-time candidates and 181 143 part-time candidates were registered on the examination system.
(c) Printing, packing, storage and distribution of the question papers to the 6 889 examination centres.
(d) Ensuring that the 6 889 centres where the examination was to be written was ready for this examination.
(e) Appointment and training of markers who were selected to mark the examination candidates scripts.
(f) Establishment of 190 marking centres where the marking will be conducted.
(g) Management of the 147 Marking Guideline Discussions where the marking guidelines are finalised and markers are trained to accurately to apply this marking guideline.
(h) Preparation for the capture of 9.7 million marks of the candidates
(i) Readiness of the Examination computer system for the processing and resulting of the marks
(j) Release of the results on the 19 January 2024.
The Department of Basic Education (DBE) is confident that all these preparatory plans have been efficiently executed and the 2023 NSC examination will be successfully administered.