File image NATIONAL NEWS - After a strenuous academic year, Umalusi, the Quality Council in General and Further Education and Training, has approved the release of the 2020 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination results. Over the past three weeks, members of the Umalusi Assessment Standards Committee and Umalusi staff hade successfully conducted the quality assurance of the management and administration of exit point examinations. These includes the Independent Examinations Board (IEB); South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI); Benchmark Assessment Agency (BAA); Department of Basic Education (DBE) and the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). Addressing the media on Monday, Umalusi Chairperson, Professor John Volmink, noted that despite the challenges presented by COVID-19, the council’s quality assurance process focused on the aspects of its mandate, including the external moderation of question papers for all subjects, learning areas, instructional offerings across all qualifications and assessment bodies; verification of a sample of site-based assessment (SBA) marks; monitoring of the assessment bodies’ state of readiness to conduct and manage the 2020 national examinations; monitoring the conduct of examinations; monitoring and verification of marking; as well as standardisation of results.