How UCT will manage the rest of the 2021 academic year

Dear undergraduate students and colleagues

Since President Cyril Ramaphosa announced South Africa’s return to Lockdown Level 4 on 27 June, we have been working with the faculties at the University of Cape Town (UCT) to arrive at the best possible approach to managing the invigilated exams we had to postpone. After thorough consultation, we have arrived at what we think is the most viable way of dealing with the impact of the lockdown on the first semester exams.

The rest of the 2021 academic year for undergraduate students will be managed as follows:

1. The vacations will remain as previously published:
   • the winter vacation starts on 10 July and ends on 1 August
   • the mid-semester vacation starts on 18 September and ends on 26 September.
2. Exams will continue in online mode next week (5 to 9 July). Some invigilated exams that had to be suspended have been converted to online mode at the request of the conveners, and these have been scheduled on the timetable for next week. To maintain the exam schedule, two exams will take place on the weekend of 10 to 11 July. The exam results will be published as planned on Friday, 23 July 2021.
3. Invigilated exams that had to be suspended and have not been converted to online mode will be held immediately after the September vacation, during the first few teaching days of the fourth quarter. We expect that no more than three teaching days will be needed for these invigilated exams. The timetable for this short exam session will be published by Friday, 16 July 2021. This will happen simultaneously with the start of the fourth quarter.

University staff are working hard to manage the changing lockdown levels with as little disruption as possible to the academic project. I thank my colleagues for their dedication and attention to the many details involved, and I thank the students for their patience and understanding.

Sincerely

Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng
Vice-Chancellor

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• From the UCT Executive
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