Better to be given a second chance than to drop out
‘Progressing’ struggling pupils into Grade 12 has its critics, but Angie Motshekga says it pays off
SOMEWHERE at a high school in Limpopo a pupil was struggling to make it through Grade 11. Having failed more than once, frustration had crept in and the pupil was contemplating dropping out of school.
However, because of our policy of encouraging provinces to condone pupils who have repeated Grade 11 more than once and those considered overage, this pupil was progressed to Grade 12 at the end of 2015 and given extra learning support.
Imagine the excitement this week when the pupil discovered that not only had they passed matric, but had obtained a bachelor’s pass with distinction.
This is not a fictitious story, but the lived reality of thousands of progressed pupils who excelled in Grade 12 because we gave them a chance. We know that progressing pupils is not popular with some education experts and commentators. Questions have been asked as to why we would burden a pupil with the rigours of Grade 12 when they already find Grade 11 a challenge.
The answer lies in a closer assessment of those progressed pupils who wrote all their seven subjects last year.
For the Class of 2016, we saw the largest enrolment of progressed pupils: 108 742, up from 65 673 in 2015. Progressed pupils represent 16.1% of the full-time candidates registered for the 2016 national senior certificate exams.
Of these, 76 510 wrote the requisite seven subjects while the rest are modularising — they write part of the exam in November and the remainder of the subjects in June the following year. Of the progressed pupils who wrote all seven subjects in November 2016, 29 384 passed, just under 40%. A further breakdown shows that of the progressed pupils who passed, 3 335 obtained bachelor passes, 12 636 diploma passes and 13 385 higher certificate passes.
What is even more impressive is that 2 361 attained distinctions, including 49 distinctions in maths, 53 in physical science, and 24 in accounting. These are considered difficult, gateway subjects.
Now, many of these “would-be high school dropouts” have the opportunity to go to university or technical and vocational colleges. This is positive indeed, especially given that the National Development Plan requires of us to increase the pupil retention rate to 90%.
We have learnt a lot from this exercise and will, by working with provinces, continue to support progressed pupils. The Free State recorded the highest pass rate of progressed pupils, at 68.1%, followed by North West at 61.1%, and Gauteng at 61%. Support for these pupils by provinces is appreciated because some of them could have fallen through the cracks.
We implore the Western Cape, which obtained 46.9%, Kwa-Zulu-Natal at 34.6%, Limpopo at 31.4% and the Eastern Cape at 27.4% to do more to assist such pupils.
Speaking of provinces, their districts are important support mechanisms to schools and the growth in the performance of districts is monitored at national level as well as by provinces. This we do because districts are the first point of contact between schools and government.
What pleases us when looking at district performance is the improvement in the number of districts that obtained a pass rate of 60% and above. In total, 67 of our 81 districts managed this, an improvement of 14% from 2015. At least 31 districts recorded a pass rate of 80% and above. Overberg in the Western Cape; Xhariep, Thabo Mofutsanyana and Fezile Dabi in the Free State; Gauteng West; and Namaqua in the Northern Cape all had a pass rate of over 90%.
As much as we are ecstatic over the performance of these and other top districts, there is some cause for concern in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Mpumalanga — the provinces with the largest concentration of rural schools. These provinces accounted for 54.5% of the total number of candidates who sat for the NSC exams in 2016. Of the 322 357 candidates in these three provinces who sat exams, 121 562 (36.4%) failed.
The six remaining provinces recorded an 83.5% overall pass. This translates to almost three failures in the Eastern Cape, Kwa-Zulu-Natal and Limpopo combined for every one failure in the six other provinces.
We must bear in mind that the Grade 12 exams are not primarily designed to measure progress in the system or in individual schools. The main purpose is to provide pupils with an exit qualification.
However, we can use the results to assess our progress as a country in providing an inclusive, quality and efficient basic education.
If we are to improve the outputs, we will have to continue to improve the fundamental quality of learning and teaching well before Grade 12. Research shows that the major causes of dropping out towards the end of secondary school are weak learning foundations. The priority must be to improve the quality of learning and teaching in the early grades, to ensure that pupils can cope with the curriculums of higher grades.
If we get those basics right, we may find ourselves with fewer pupils who have to be progressed to Grade 12. But for now we will do whatever it takes to give them a second chance.