READER LETTER | Matric cheats harm hard work of honest pupils

In 2020 and 2021, normal schooling was disrupted by Covid-19. In 2022 floods in some provinces and loadshedding countrywide caused major disruptions.

Strangely, despite these very serious problems, we all get very excited when the matric results show impressive performance by the learners, with some special achievers having passed with a number of distinctions in many subjects. They rightly deserve to be applauded.

However, the real hard workers will unavoidably suffer that nagging doubt, that will always cloud the authenticity of their spectacular results. The widespread rumours of overt exam cheating orchestrated by teachers in many subjects in exchange for money sometimes as much as R1,000 has surely dented achievements of honest learners.

If unemployment has been so stubbornly persistent since the introduction of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), which opened unlimited opportunities to all, what chance do these learners who pass under these questionable circumstances have?

We have many university graduates who have been sitting at home for many years as though there is some sinister motive to prove that, that NSFAS thing was a futile exercise that will not change anything, as it will not open any opportunities to change the fortunes of the previously disadvantaged.

I hope I am wrong. Doctors and nurses and other health professionals are also sitting at home unemployed because there is no money to employ them. Very sad!

Cometh Dube-Makholwa, Midrand