Marking of the matric exams should be completed by December 15, the basic education department says.
Students finished writing exams last week “without major incidents”.
Basic education director-general Mathanzima Mweli has visited marking centres in Limpopo, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.
“We, unfortunately, lost a marker in KwaZulu-Natal at Pietermaritzburg Girls’ High marking centre on Tuesday due to an illness. I visited this centre to talk to markers. The province is providing psychological services and markers are continuing with marking.”
Mweli said power cuts are causing a backlog in capturing marks, and that this would be addressed with Eskom.
There are 44,505 markers at 141 marking centres across the country.
Mweli said when marking was done “the Umalusi [quality assurer] standardisation process will take place”.
Basic education minister Angie Motshekga will announce the results of the class of 2018 on January 3. It will be broadcast live on SABC and other stations at 6pm.