9.3 South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU): SADTU had been engaged with the Department since the beginning of the year on all processes and programme in respect of the state-of-readiness for the final examinations. The union was satisfied that the Department was ready for the examinations. SADTU was also part of the monitoring processes and had been visiting schools and the provincial office to check their readiness. The union also engaged with the Department in respect of the number of marking centres. SADTU had been part of the selection procedures for markers from the start and indicated that there had been much improvement in the process of the selection of markers. The marking process was not an event but a process. The exposure received by these markers was very valuable for confidence building. SADTU was strongly against the competency testing of markers as they felt that if markers were good enough to do the School Based Assessment (SBA) marking, they should also be good enough for the NSC marking. SADTU further cautioned against gate-keeping practiced by many schools in the province.