Zwelibanzi v University of Transkei

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Judge: Beck CJ
• Judgment Date: 19 May 1993
• Docket Number: 681/93
• Court: Transkei High Court
• Hearing Date: 12 May 1993
• Citation: 1995 (1) SA 407 (TK)

Beck CJ:

Intimating that written reasons would be given later, I made the following order in this urgent application that came before me last week:

'1.

The decision of the respondent as contained in its letter to the applicant dated 11 March 1993 is hereby set aside.

2.

H The respondent is to consider whether or not the applicant should be afforded the relief provided by reg C2.4 of the Regulations for the Faculty of Economic Sciences.

3.

The respondent is not to refuse the relief provided by the aforementioned reg C2.4 without having afforded the applicant an I opportunity of being heard as to whether or not she should be afforded such relief.'

The regulation to which reference is made in the order apparently appears in the 1993 Prospectus of the University, which I have not seen.

It is however, common cause that the relevant portion of the regulation J reads as follows:

Beck CJ

A 'Third-year students who have obtained a mark of 47-48% may be given a re-evaluation or oral as soon after results are known as possible.'

The respondent did not contend that this regulation is inapplicable to the contractual relationship between the applicant (a third-year BA (Ed) student) and the University but accepted that it is a provision that the B respondent would be entitled to employ for her benefit.

The facts that gave rise to the application are these:

One of the applicant's courses in 1992 was Economics III. At intervals during the year six tests have to be written to obtain a year mark that reflects, as a percentage, the total of all marks obtained by the student in those tests, divided by six. For one of the six tests that the C applicant sat she was given a zero mark and the total of the marks that she obtained in the other five tests, divided by six gave her a year mark of 39%.

The year mark is added to the percentage mark that the student obtains at the year-end examination. The total of these two marks is then halved and the resulting percentage that is obtained determines whether the student D passes or fails the subject, a percentage of less than 49% signifying failure. In the applicant's case her percentage mark for the year end examination (which she wrote in February 1993 as an aegrotat because she was ill in November 1992) was 56%. Added to her year mark of 39%, and then halved, this resulted in a final mark of 48% (47,5%).

E The applicant feels aggrieved at this result because, according to her it was through no fault of hers that she was awarded a zero mark for one of her tests during the year. She avers that she handed in two answer books for that test - one which she had cancelled by crossing out what she had begun to write, but the other containing her answers to the questions set. When she later went to her lecturer to ascertain what mark she had F obtained for that test she discovered that he had only seen the cancelled answer book, the other one having been mislaid. While not unreservedly accepting her assurance that she had handed in two answer books, the lecturer gave her the benefit of the doubt and said that she could write another test that he would set for her. He required her to do this the G very next...