Cape Town – Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has revealed that examiners of the just-ended Matric exams have uncovered cheating in the English Home Language Papers.
Speaking at the Good Hope Chambers, Cape Town, Western Cape, on Thursday, 11 December 2025, Minister Gwarube said robust marking systems had enabled the anomaly to be detected.
“The Gauteng Department of Education officially alerted the national Department of Basic Education, on 2 December 2025, to an unusual similarity between the answers provided by a candidate with the answer provided in the marking guideline for English Home Language Paper 2,” Minister Gwarube said.
“This raised an immediate red flag and triggered standard protocols, starting with a preliminary investigation, which confirmed that a breach had indeed occurred in respect of a few of the exam scripts.”
She said the National Department of Basic Education and the Gauteng Department of Education assembled a joint investigation team.
The team began interviewing the first group of learners whose scripts were flagged, and later expanded the interviews to additional learners likely to have been exposed to the material.
“A total of 26 learners were identified for interviews by the National Department of Basic Education,” stated the minister.
“The learners interviewed admitted having prior access to both the English Home Language Paper 2 question paper and the marking guideline.
“Upon studying the question paper, our investigators concluded that it could only have originated from the National Department of Basic Education’s offices.”
Minister Gwarube said Further investigation revealed that the breach extended beyond a single paper in the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations.
This year, more than 900 000 learners sat for the NSC Matric exams.
What the investigation has established so far.
Based on interviews conducted up to this stage, the minister stated the following:
• The breach occurred at the offices of the Department of Basic Education, where question papers are set.
• Of the 162 papers that we had set, only 3 subjects were accessed before the examination: English Home Language Papers 1, 2, and 3; Mathematics Papers 1 and 2; and Physical Sciences Papers 1 and 2.
• These papers were shared via a USB storage device.
“The spread seems to be confined to identified learners in seven schools in a specific area in Pretoria. At this stage, there is no evidence that the breach spread beyond this localised area,” the minister said.
“However, we are continuing our investigation meticulously. Our systems are robust.
“They have allowed us to identify that the suspect involved is an employee of the Department of Basic Education who has a child in Grade 12.
“Evidence suggests that she received the question paper from another Department of Basic Education employee who works in the examination unit.”
The minister said the Department of Basic Education was establishing a National Investigative Task Team, which will commence its work within the next 24 hours, and the matter had also been reported to the police.
She said two staff members implicated in the matric exam breach have been suspended with immediate effect.
Minister Garube said the anomaly was detected because markers, whose training includes investigative marking, are equipped to know the difference between authentic learner responses and content that should only be accessible to markers.
“This skill, plus our robust marking regime, which involves not less than 5 layers of quality assurance, was how we were able to pick up anomalies,” she said.
“Let me be clear: This detection demonstrates the effectiveness of our system.
“The breach did not come to light through rumours.”
