Education Department Investigates Illegal Sale Of Matric Marks

Words: Kirav Doolabh and Veer Gosai / GroundUp

Thousands of matriculants eagerly await their National Senior Certificate NSC matric results. In the past, many students were frustrated by overloaded government and media result websites. Then a service, called Edumarks, claimed that for a payment of R100, it would deliver to the subscriber their official matric results up to seven days earlier.

GroundUp asked the Department of Basic Education, in December, to investigate the legitimacy of Edumarks. After extensive scrutiny, the department concluded: Edumarks is a bogus business offering a service it cannot deliver on, and if Edumarks's claims were true, then they are committing fraud on multiple levels by colluding with individuals who have unauthorised access to sensitive matric marks databases.

Edumarks has reportedly been operating since 2021 and claims a 97 accuracy rate for marks sent to the class of 2023.

When we tested the service with students from the class of 2023, we found Edumarks emailed accurate results. However, the results were from January 2024 and did not reflect final updates after optional matric exam paper remarks, which are typically released in March. This means that Edumarks issues results from the original matric mark database sent out in January.