Matric pass rate boosted, says dept

BETTER performances in supplementary exams have seen nearly four out of five candidates from the Northern Cape, who wrote the National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams last year, successfully complete their basic education.

This is according to Northern Cape Department of Education spokesperson, Geoffrey van der Merwe, who yesterday announced the new provincial Grade 12 pass rate of 78.3 percent for the 2017 NSC, due to improved marks in supplementary exams.

“In all, 1 775 candidates wrote the NSC Supplementary Examination,” said Van der Merwe yesterday afternoon. “This increased the overall provincial pass rate by 2.7 percent, from 75.6 percent to 78.3 percent.”

According to Van der Merwe, the overall improvement may well have been even greater had more than half of the eligible pupils used the opportunity to improve their marks.

“We are obviously disappointed that just over 50 percent of the qualifying candidates utilised this opportunity,” he said. “Although the increase in the pass rate is in line with the performance improvement norm for the supplementary examination, we are still not satisfied with this result.

“However, we are happy that more candidates could pass.

“The department would like to encourage the unsuccessful supplementary candidates to register to write the 2018 October/November NSC Examination, on or before June 8, 2018. They are urged to participate in the Second Chance Matric Programme.”