Umalusi has granted approval to various assessment bodies to administer the end-of-the-year examinations.

On Thursday morning the Umalusi Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training briefed the media about the state of readiness to administer and manage the 2019 matric exams.

Umalusi announced that there was a decrease of 40,000 candidates who had registered to write the 2019 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations. The 2019 examinations administered by the department of basic education will be written by approximately 629,197 full-time and 122,471 part-time candidates.

CEO of Umalusi Dr Mafu Ramoketsi said the examinations will take place at more than 6,900 centres across the provinces.

Ramoketsi said they were also concerned with the shortage of markers in key subjects with high enrolments.

“An audit was conducted and Northern Cape had a shortage of agricultural sciences and Afrikaans markers whereas Western Cape had a shortage of history Paper 2 and Eastern Cape had a shortage with English first additional language, physical sciences, life sciences and Afrikaans markers,” he said.

Ramoketsi said while contingency plans have been put in place to address these shortages in the interim period, the matter required the urgent attention of all affected provincial departments.

Basic education director-general Dr Mweli Matanzima said the department was confident that the examination systems were ready.

“Every learner must be afforded the best possible opportunity to achieve the NSC. In addition, this is the second year that learners will write South African sign language."