The Department of Basic Education (DBE) will strengthen technology solutions, including access control, in response to the pervasive use of technology including ChatGPT to cheat during matric exams.
This follows the latest leak of papers, involving 40 learners from last year's cohort who cheated on seven papers for Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and English home language.
Professor Chika Sehoole, chairperson of the National Investigative Task Team (NITT), says that copies of illicitly-obtained papers were distributed via USB drives, WhatsApp messages, screenshots, printed copies, and other messaging platforms.
In addition, Sehoole says ChatGPT was “used by some candidates to structure and reformulate papers” against the marking guidelines, which were also accessed by a DBE official and provided to her son ahead of the exams.
Along with analysts and educators, Sehoole stresses the need for increased IT security to safeguard papers being made available ahead of scheduled exams.
On Friday, Umalusi approved the 2025 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results and confirmed their credibility. Results will be released tomorrow, although they will be laid out in physical newspapers later today.
Addressing media on the results of an investigation into leaked papers, basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube said her department will strengthen technological solutions. “We will update our control for new technologies, including wearables. We are also strengthening digital security.”
This, Gwarube said, will include tighter access to login control as well as encryption and data protection. “We’re putting stronger safeguards in place,” she says.
In October, the DBE said it will use GPS-tracked distribution vehicles to transport matric exam papers, as part of risk management and contingency plans. That came after a 2022 hijacking of an eight-ton truck carrying question papers for technical and vocational exams.
Old school
ICT veteran commentator Adrian Schofield says that, while the number of learners involved was small at a fraction of a percent, this “does underline the pressing need to upgrade our education systems and use technology to eliminate the gaps in the way in which we evaluate the success of creating adult-ready school leavers”.
T4i director Mark Walker, who was previously with research company IDC, says “ultimately, there will always be breaches, the remedy is to continuously seek ways to secure the process from beginning to end.”
This, Walker says, implies regulation, process management, enforcement and sanction to protect the integrity of the qualification and enable trust in the quality of what is certified.
The core of this problem will always be access control and how it is applied, Jacqui Muller, researcher at Belgium Campus iTversity, adds.
“The increased sophistication of cyber attacks will continue to put the exam papers at risk,” says Muller. She explains that the teachers’ use of tools and freely available AI assistants will also change the way users study.
Muller warns of a new vulnerability, suggesting that artificial intelligence (AI) models themselves could inadvertently become a source of leaked content if prompted correctly. “If the students prompt the correct AI, with the correct prompt, we may end up with the unintended consequence of the AIs (GPT models) leaking the papers.”
Schofield also points to the lack of the use of technology when it comes to final exams. He says “amazingly, well into the 21st Century, much of the process is manual, requiring the compilation, distribution and collection of physical assets in a secure, controlled manner”.
Prior leaks, in 2020 and 2024, were traced back to the interception of physical papers, which were then distributed through various means including being sold online as well as WhatsApp and other social media channels.
Ongoing issue
Umalusi CEO Dr Mafu Rakometsi has also expressed concern at the “unending cases of irregularities that are uncovered on an annual basis”.
Divulged papers are nothing new, says Muller. “This has been happening since 2014. Certain government departments have, in the past, saved the papers on Dropbox or SharePoint where there were little to no access restrictions applied and papers were unintentionally leaked,” she says.
Muller adds that this consistent problem extends beyond the basic schooling system with individuals misusing their access to Universities South Africa data to “actually sell the matric exam marks early 2025, prior to the official release”.
This year, DBE has changed the results distribution timetable so that tertiary institutions only receive NSC results 24 hours before the official public release, instead of around three days ahead of time.
Rakometsi explains that early detection is key and the department’s systems worked exactly as they were designed to: to detect, isolate, investigate and address the irregularity.
Schofield adds that the pressure that finals places on learners creates the incentive to cheat “to get a good result without doing the work”.
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