We wish matrics well – in their exams and after
The 2018 National Senior Certificate examinations are under way and 106,837 Eastern Cape candidates are among some 796,542 pupils writing their final exams across the country. After at least 11 years of schooling, the matric year is a pivotal time in pupils’ lives and those who have put in the sweat in the form of hours of study and cultural and sporting efforts will hopefully find these go far towards opening doors for their future, whether they plan to study further or seek work.
Some nerves ahead of exams are natural but we encourage candidates to eat and sleep healthily, make sure they are well prepared and, most important of all, have confidence in themselves and their abilities.
Many of these Grade 12s have overcome great odds to get this far, including all the problems associated with poverty, unsupportive home environments, learning disabilities and underresourced and over-crowded schools. We salute their determination.
But we acknowledge that at least 45% – and possibly as many as two thirds – of the children who began school alongside these matrics have disappeared along the way, an astonishingly high dropout rate.
Add to this the dismal performance in international benchmark tests and one cannot but conclude that for a government that spends generously on basic education, the results are abysmal.
We share with officials and the broader community the optimism that this year’s results will be even better than the last, when the provincial pass rate recorded a sharp uptick.
However, while matric results are important for measuring the performance of the schooling system, pitting schools and pupils from different backgrounds against one another has little value. And academic qualifications are not the be-all and end-all. Most countries with successful education offer alternative streams and qualifications. It is all good and well to offer Swahili and Mandarin as subjects but it is high time the authorities offer Grade 7s the option of entering vocational and technical streams of education. SA needs engineers, accountants and computer boffins but it also needs artisans, technicians and creatives.
We wish all the province’s matric candidates well in their exams and for the future.
We share ... optimism that this year’s results will be even better than the last ... a sharp uptick