A matric debacle — learners discover what happens when online schooling goes wrong 

On 17 January, a day before the matric results were released, Ntokozo Dlamini, an 18-year-old learner at Seat Academy online school, was pacing about her house — the late announcement this year of the results added to her stress.

When the results were released the following day, she checked the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (Sacai) website and saw an error code next to two of her subjects, which meant she had marks outstanding and could not be given her overall result.

Seat Academy CEO John Volkwyn. (Photo: Supplied)

Sacai is a non-profit private assessment body, with its main focus being to design and put together matric exams for learners registered to write the Grade 12 National Senior Certificate (NSC) through private and online schools. Sacai is one of two private assessment institutions accredited by the education quality assurance body, Umalusi. The other one is the Independent Examinations Board (IEB). 

While the IEB accredits mainly physical and independent schools, Sacai’s membership is mostly online schools, distance education providers and smaller schools.

Because Dlamini could not make sense of her results statement she called Seat Academy, the online school with which she was registered. Seat referred her to Sacai, which told her some of her marks were still outstanding.

It soon emerged that other Seat learners had problems with their results and the school’s Grade 12 WhatsApp group was inundated with similar complaints.

What had happened was that Seat had not submitted its School-Based Assessment (SBA) marks to Sacai on time. SBAs are a learner’s assessment marks for each subject obtained throughout the year and constitute 25% of the final mark. Seat had not submitted SBAs for 82 of 115 matriculants it had registered with Sacai.

According to Sacai CEO Keith Maseko, complaints in the form of emails came to Sacai’s attention in September 2022, a couple of weeks before the start of the October/November 2022 examinations.

Maseko said his intervention in the matter included him flying to Cape Town in October before the Grade 12 exams to see Seat and discuss the complaints — relating to the cancellation of classes and learners not receiving their term reports.

He added that a presentation was done by Seat on how it would turn around the institution pertaining to cash flow issues and how marking would be completed, with SBA marks being sent to Sacai for uploading by the second week of December.

Sacai wrote a letter to Seat in November 2022 asking it to submit SBA marks timeously. It assured Seat that Sacai would not prevent learners from writing the final exams despite Seat not having settled its account with Sacai from as far back as January 2022.

Last year, Sacai had 37 distance education providers, four online schools, 37 independent (brick and mortar) schools and a total of 4,951 Grade 12 learners.

Distance learning is when an institution sends learning material to learners who learn from home by themselves or with the aid of a tutor. Learners then complete assignments, projects and so on and resend them to the learning institution.

Online schools, however, mostly have live classes and operate like a normal school, but virtually.

Sacai’s intervention did not turn things around, and amaBhungane has tried to establish what went wrong.

Complaints

AmaBhungane counted more than 300 messages from January 19 to February 20 on the Grade 12 WhatsApp group, which had 89 participants — learners and parents.

“My report is a complete mess, Sir. I have the wrong marks and have submitted all my work,” said one learner, writing for the attention of the Seat chief executive, John Volkwyn.

“The same applies to [name withheld]… his Afrikaans marks are missing and we’ve made endless enquiries about this issue in term 2 already,” a parent wrote.

Another learner wrote: “Sir what must we do about the university that is waiting for my results, the 6th of Feb will be late and I will not have time to register.”

Volkwyn, in a telephonic interview with amaBhungane, blamed disgruntled teachers who, he claimed, quit without notice. He said some teachers did not submit learners’ marks to Seat. The teachers, he said, quit Seat because he was unable to pay them because of parents not paying school fees.

“Tutors resigned and withheld Seat property such as the students’ marks; [they] didn’t even submit them on to our LMS (Learner Management System). The very same teachers took me to CCMA [Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration]. 

“Employees have more rights than employers… The resignations affected our live classes as well because it takes about six weeks to replace a teacher… you have to go through the recruitment process.”

However, the 13 parents who spoke to amaBhungane said they had paid.

A day after the results were released, there was a message on the WhatsApp group from a telephone number registered as Seat Academy. It said learners whose results reflected an error code indicating the learner had marks outstanding, would get their results by 6 February.

“We have forwarded all queries to Sacai by this morning and await feedback,” the message said.

Volkwyn himself replied to the WhatsApp complaints and apologised for some learners not getting their results. He urged parents to allow the process of rectifying the results to be concluded. Although Volkwyn said he sympathised with his ex-matriculants and their parents, he claimed the issue was blown out of proportion.

“Parents are acting as if their children’s lives are ruined forever, and this is not the case. This is what is wrong with the current education system — they put emphasis on matric as if it’s the only year of schooling that matters. As a society, we need to ask ourselves: Aren’t we being dramatic?”

Most parents did not accept the CEO’s explanation and demanded answers. Volkwyn said Seat was doing all it could to assist the Grade 12s.  

“However, if this group is going to become toxic, I will exit the group and inform the staff as well. The only access you will then have to us is via email,” Volkwyn wrote on the WhatsApp group.

Parents’ complaints included:

• Classes were cancelled at the last minute;


• Sometimes there were no classes for weeks;


• Learners were sent downloaded videos from YouTube;


• Assessments were done late, and therefore there was no monitoring of learner progress;


• The curriculum that was taught was not suitable; and


• Reports were not issued throughout the year.

Sacai steps in

On 2 February, Sacai called a parent meeting on Zoom to discuss a way forward.

Thirty-five parents attended the meeting and resolved that for learners to get their full results, projects would have to be resubmitted directly to Sacai to calculate the SBAs. Some learners who didn’t have copies of their assignments had to redo them.

According to Maseko, as of 3 March, only eight learners had not received their results. Although this means most learners got their results, it was too late for some, who lost their bursaries and places at tertiary institutions.

Dlamini’s mother, Nokuthula, said the Seat ordeal had taken its toll on her daughter.

“She is putting on a brave face but I can see this has taken a mental toll. I have been monitoring her and even scheduled a therapy session. She is withdrawn and avoids family and friends. You know how it is with matric results; it’s a big deal,” she said.

‘Toxic’ working environment

An ex-teacher described working conditions at Seat as toxic.

One teacher said she had lost everything because of the non-payment of her salary.

“I don’t want to talk too much about that place, I am still traumatised. Instead of management addressing the issue of non-payment of salaries, we were threatened with dismissal. It was a horrible working environment. They took advantage of us; they didn’t care because we were dispensable.”

On 9 September 2022, another ex-teacher wrote on Facebook that tutors were expected to work with little to nothing of what they were owed being paid to them, alleging: “The management team is beyond arrogant and expects staff to motivate for their salaries as if they are children.

“They sell their staff empty promises... They ignore you when you demand your money and then question the passion of staff to teach, as a way to play on people’s emotions. The most toxic work environment I’ve ever come across in my life.”

Pass rate

Seat parents and learners are not only concerned about the SBAs being sent late to Sacai. The low matric pass rate of just 35% for Seat learners is also of major concern.

Out of 115 Seat matriculants, 74 failed.

This compares with four other online schools registered with Sacai achieving pass rates of between 70% and 80%.  There were 1,200 learners from online schools who wrote their matric results with Sacai. The overall pass rate for Sacai was 72%.

This compares with the national average pass rate of 80.1% for public and 98.42% for private schools.

Volkwyn blamed his high failure rate on the learners’ lack of initiative. “The learners who didn’t do well also need to take responsibility because they didn’t prepare enough, especially in the age of the internet… Gone are the days where the teacher was the only source of knowledge.”

Low fees

Volkwyn ascribed part of the problem at Seat to its relatively low fees.

The school experienced rapid growth through its low fees, with its ambition being to “want to change education in South Africa”.

When the school opened its virtual doors in 2020, it had 500 learners, a figure which by the end of last year had grown to 2,400.

“We admit we grew fast and couldn’t handle our debtors’ books. Our tutors couldn’t handle the workload, but because of non-payment we could not hire extra staff,” Volkwyn said.

Seat fees were between R650 and R1,400 (for matric) a month. Fees at other online schools were between R2,500 and R3,500 a month, and for a government school, between R1,500 and R3,000 a month.

Volkwyn believes that parents wanted a Rolls-Royce service while paying a very low price.

“Yes, I promised a Rolls-Royce service, much to my detriment,” he said.

Volkwyn said the matric class owed him about R60,000 and other grades some R4-million.

The Department of Basic Education did not respond to amaBhungane’s questions about complaints against Seat, how it handled complaints about online schools, and when a policy on online schools — which exist in something of a regulatory vacuum — was likely to be implemented.

According to Maseko, the Seat debacle was an isolated incident and not a reflection of all of Sacai’s registered online schools.

He said Seat was a unique case, with one year of success followed by a year in which funds and cash flow to run the operations became an issue. “These sorts of cases catch everyone off guard,” Maseko said.

He said that in 2021, Seat had good reviews on social media, and his organisation was comfortable with Seat’s performance. At the end of the 2022 academic year, he was shocked by its performance and communication with parents and affected learners.

He said Sacai had taken what action it could.

“Sacai signs an annual registration with all its institutions… this also enables Sacai to terminate the relations with the respective institution if they are not operating professionally, ethically, and adhering to the implementation of the national Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (Caps).”

The administrative debacle cost Seat its membership with Sacai, which has terminated its registration for 2023, meaning the school cannot offer grades 10, 11 and 12. DM/MC