Maringa said the decision was taken during a meeting at the Greater Giyani municipal offices on 26 January.

He said the meeting was facilitated by a delegation from the Mopani district regional education department.

“The pupils will attend the Saturday classes in their school uniform,” said Maringa.

Mopani regional education department’s senior manager Lebuwani Mafenya said matrics needed to strive for university exemption.

“We should be concerned with the number of pupils who achieve university entrance results. Of the 1 193 matric pupils we had last year, only 323 [achieved university exemption]. We should do more this year to improve this number and also to achieve our 90% target,” said Mafenya.

She also warned teachers not to advance pupils to the next year out of sympathy.

“When pupils get condoned in every grade they attend, we end up having pupils in Grade 12 who never actually passed a grade,” she said. “If a learner has failed, let him or her fail. Don’t add marks or condone them to another grade on the basis that they’ve repeated a particular grade several times.”