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Independent Newspapers
Durban –
Unisa has responded to a Carte Blanche investigation into its marking system, which was screened on Sunday.
“Management has immediately instituted an urgent, incisive and all-inclusive audit of the assessment processes, with a view to identifying the root causes of the kinds of problems that were brought to the attention of the university,” the institution said on Tuesday.
Bongani Bingwa, the Carte Blanche presenter, tweeted before the show: “At nearly 400K, are Unisa students getting a fair deal? Many allege the institution is not coping.”
The show segment, titled “Marked down and ticked off”, investigated claims that Unisa had many flaws in its marking systems.
There were two incidents where a student submitted the same assignment twice and received different marks for it.
A past student claimed that only a percentage of the assignments were marked, and the rest were then given an average, which would explain why eight other A-students on the show all got the same mark of 37.14 percent for an assignment.
Unisa management stressed that “the issues raised by Carte Blanche do not reflect the existence of a pervasive problem within the university’s assessment systems and processes.
“We nevertheless take a grave view of them since they have a very negative impact on the reputation and integrity of the university, and… may also seriously compromise the integrity of our qualifications.”
Unisa said it would review the appointment of markers and improve its quality-control measures.
The Mercury
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