Western Cape ‘a long-term winner’
Due to retentions, more pupils will ultimately matriculate
WHAT the Western Cape Education Department calls the “real matric pass rate” shows a different ranking than the one announced by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga.
The MEC for education in the province, Debbie Schäfer, said the department had said, repeatedly each year, that when considering the National Senior Certificate exam results, the number of learners passing through the system and ultimately passing matric had to be considered.
According to Schäfer, the Western Cape was ranked first, Gauteng second and Mpumalanga third, when looking at the number of learners in Grade 10 who were retained in the system and wrote matric.
Free State, which is the number-one-performing province for 2017, comes in at number nine, according to Schäfer.
“It is clear that the Western Cape has retained the most learners in the system between Grades 10 and 12 – with a retention rate of 12.8 percentage points higher than Gauteng, and 22 percentage points higher than the Free State.
“While it is always nice to be number one, in the Western Cape our focus will remain on whether we have increased the numbers of candidates passing, and the quality of those passes. We are analysing the results to determine which schools did not perform well and in which subject areas.”
The Western Cape managed to retain its above 80% pass rate, with a pass rate of 82.7%, a 3.2% drop when compared with 2016.
The pass rate goes to 84.4%, a 3.3% drop from 2016, when the progressed pupils are excluded.
Schäfer said they were disappointed this was not reflected in the announcement of the national matric results.
“We believe that retaining more learners in the system and giving them the opportunity to pass the NSC is more important than ‘losing’ learners along the way so that schools can achieve a higher pass rate. We believe that this practice defeats the purpose of education for these children.”
The Portfolio Committee on Basic Education has expressed its appreciation and satisfaction with the 2017 Grade 12 results.
The chairperson of the committee, Nomalungelo Gina, said the results showed much improvement.
“As members we welcome the results, and especially warmly welcome the improvement shown by rural provinces like the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo,” she said.
“We are also impressed by the performance of the special schools that recorded around 900 bachelor passes. We focused on special schools, and so did the department. The efforts are bearing fruit.”