Adult Education and Training Act, 2000 (Act No. 52 of 2000)

The typing of question papers should be carried out by a team of selected personnel supervised by a chief typist. They may do their work on personal computers not Med to an external network and all their work should be done in a restricted area. This task should be supervised by a senior staff member, i.e. one of the officials in the department who has access to the question papers. The hard disks and the source document should be cleared and transferred to stiffy disks, which must then be locked away on a daily basis.

Language editing may be carried out by specially appointed language editors. Alternatively, this function may be carried out by a select group of Learning Area Committees who should also complete the Contract of Confidentiality document. The final editing should be the task of the chief examiner and he/she, together with the internal moderator (where possible), should sign to certify that he/she has checked the question paper in every respect and that the question paper is ready for printing.

Examining bodies should invest in a building with proper security that can be used for typing, printing, packaging and storage. All examination activities may then be carried out in the safe building, which allows access to certain authorised persons only. Therefore, in terms of printing, examining bodies should move to establishing in-house printing facilities. Where in-house printing is done, the persons involved in the printing may also be involved in the packaging. The printing process must be carried out under close supervision of a senior official. If the examiner/senior examiner lives in close proximity to the printing venue, he/she should be contacted to inspect the first batch of printed question papers personally, before the total number of question papers is printed. Alternatively, a senior official may be entrusted with the task of approving the quality and standard of the first batch of printed question papers. Where examining bodies choose to use external agencies for the purpose of printing, the agency concerned should be fully investigated by the examining body to ensure that, inter alia, strict security measures are in place, and the quality of the printing is good. Examining bodies should, however, attempt to move away from the use of external printers and seek to build capacity in the province.