Unthinkable: InfoReg Defends Shameful Suppression of Students’ Matric Achievements

SHOCK DECISION: A POWER-HUNGRY regulator is declaring WAR on transparency and vowing to SHACKLE the futures of South Africa’s youth by BANNING the publication of matric results. This MOVE, led by Advocate Pansy Tlakula, has sparked a FURIOUS legal battle, with critics blasting it as an ABSURD overreach that prioritizes bureaucratic CONTROL over public accountability and the CELEBRATION of student achievement.

In a jaw-dropping power grab, the Information Regulator has vowed to fight on to BLOCK the 2025 matric results from being published in newspapers, defying a HIGH COURT ruling that sided with the Department of Basic Education. The Regulator’s enforcement notice, backed by a R5 MILLION threat, was shockingly issued over so-called privacy concerns, claiming the decades-old tradition of publishing results violates the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). This is NOT about protection—it’s about an unaccountable body imposing its will and CREATING CHAOS.

This DANGEROUS precedent means the hard-won accomplishments of hundreds of thousands of learners could be HIDDEN from public view, buried in digital portals and private letters. The regulator’s brazen defiance of the court exposes a DEEPER MALAISE: a state apparatus increasingly obsessed with secrecy and control, using the SMOKESCREEN of data protection to undermine societal norms and public interest. They are prepared to drag this fight to the Supreme Court of Appeal, WASTING precious resources and time in a relentless crusade against openness.

The implications are TERRIFYING. If a faceless regulator can erase a public tradition that honors academic excellence and holds the education system accountable, what cherished pillar of society is NEXT? We are witnessing the slow erasure of shared milestones in the name of a surveillance-state logic that views every citizen’s achievement as a piece of data to be locked away.

This isn’t privacy—it’s the quiet BURIAL of collective pride and a direct assault on the public’s right to know. When a nation can no longer celebrate its children’s success together, what does that say about the dark future we are blindly constructing?