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Service delivery exam delay: pupils to write in January

Pupils  who were unable to write their final examinations this year due to service delivery protests in Kopela, North West, will be able to do so early next month.

About 1500 grade R to Grade 11 pupils were held up by their parents from writing the final-year examination.

Angry residents took to the streets in September, demanding a tarred road, electricity and water.

A secondary school and two primary schools, as well as a clinic were burnt down during the protest.

At the time, residents vowed schoolchildren would not return to class until the North West government responded to their demands.

This week, the office of the public protector and the provincial department of education met the villagers and it was agreed they would send the pupils back to school next year.

"I want to go to Grade 6 next year, I was worried that I would repeat the same grade, I do not think that I would fail in January because I was among the top three pupils in my class," said Grade 5 pupil Malebo Mathe, who was happy to hear that she would be writing her 2015 final exam.

The deal was that children would be allowed to return to school while the provincial government addresses residents' issues.

"I was worried, I am a single parent and the school fees are expensive, I am happy that my son will be going to school next year," said a concerned mother, Maria Mathe, Malebo's mother.

North West education spokesman Elias Malindi said about 1500 pupils who did not write their final exam this year would write in January in order to be promoted to higher grades.

Malindi said they would bring mobile classes to Kopela and use some of the classes that were not destroyed when the schools were set alight. He said the schools would reopen on January 5.

"The Grade 1 to 11 pupils in Kopela Primary, Kelebogile Primary, Noto Secondary, Thebeyame Primary and Ramokonyane will be given an opportunity of two weeks to revise their school work with their teachers.

"On the 18 January 2016 they will sit for their final examination and on the 29th January teachers will give them their academic reports."

Malindi said pupils who have passed will move to higher grades and the academic year would start on February 1.

Fifty-five matriculants from Noto Secondary School were taken to Vryburg in order to write their final examinations.

tshehleb@sowetan.co.za

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