With South Africa struggling with both the COVID-19 pandemic and another bout of Stage 4 loadshedding, the University of South Africa (Unisa) is left in a tough position for students who need to complete examinations and module assignments.
To combat this the university has offered students the ability to write aegrotat exams. This means that their papers will be moved to another exam season, this time the January / February 2022 window.
“South Africans have been largely inconvenienced by the increased instances of loadshedding by Eskom over the past few weeks. While we have advised students to charge their devices and plan for the online examinations against their loadshedding schedules, we have noted that some students are still negatively affected by poor network connectivity and are unable to complete their examinations,” Unisa writes.
While Unisa is a distance education institution exams from the school were still traditionally written in person. This changed last year due to the pandemic and exams have remained online ever since.
For students who would like to take Unisa up on its offer to write aegrotat exam(s), they apply for it ten days before the date of their paper.
The following steps are provided by Unisa to follow for those who would like to do aegrotat exams.
- Login to myUnisa and go to MyAdmin.
- Select the examination timetable on Assessment Admin.
- Click on Display to view your Oct/Nov timetable.
- Click on “Apply for AegrotatExamination” and enter the details required. You are required to attach supporting documentation; an affidavit may suffice.
The ten day advance choice students need to make is a bit limiting as Eskom has a nasty habit of changing loadshedding status without much notice. Recently the power utility has given South African precious few minutes of forewarning before changing the loadshedding stages so Unisa students are put in a rough position with more than a week’s notice for exams.
The one saving grace here is that, while typical written exams (which Unisa calls “essay-type” exams) are subject to the ten day waiting period, it seems there is more leeway for multiple choice question (MCQ) exams.
“Please note if you have started a MCQ examination and experience loadshedding during your MCQ assessment, you may apply for an aegrotat by sending your application to aegrotats@unisa.ac.za. All other students are advised to follow the above-mentioned process. Click here for the contact list for the university should you have any exam-related enquiries,” Unisa concludes.
