MECs do the maths and hope for better marks

● South Africa’s matric class of 2017 is likely to see improved results in maths and science.

Marks in maths, maths literacy, physical science and life sciences did not require adjustment this year, according to exams quality assurance body, Umalusi. Professor John Volmink, chairman of Umalusi’s council, said there was a “steady upward trend” in maths and science marks.

Part of Umalusi’s job is to standardise matric results, which means ensuring that the standard of exams remains the same across years and subjects. Standardisation of results is a quality assurance process used across the world.

Although the assessment standards committee made mainly downward adjustments to marks in four subjects and mainly upward adjustments in 16, it left marks in 38 subjects unchanged.

Last year, Umalusi left marks for physical science unchanged but adjusted marks upwards for maths, maths literacy and life sciences. Only 51.1% of pupils passed maths and 71.3% passed maths literacy last year while 62% passed physical science and 70.5% life sciences.

Umalusi spokesman Lucky Ditaunyane said that when marks were adjusted there was no blanket increase or decrease for all pupils. “It would be simplistic to say a particular subject was increased by a blanket of 5%. In some cases, some learners’ marks may be adjusted up or down within the same subject,” he said.

Volmink said yesterday that visual arts, dramatic arts and agricultural science needed more support. “They should be afforded the status they deserve in terms of providing them with the necessary resources, for example, learning and teaching support material.”

A total of 802 636 pupils registered to write matric exams — 634 527 full-time candidates and 168 109 part-timers. They included 104 001 “progressed” pupils who entered Grade 12 despite having failed Grade 11.

Although Volmink praised the Department of Basic Education for conducting incident-free exams in which no papers were leaked, he said there was still “unevenness” in the quality of marking across provinces.

Several education MECs were optimistic that their provincial pass rates would be higher than last year when results are issued on Thursday.

The Free State’s Tate Makgoe said he was confident of a 90% pass rate, up from the 88.2% that put the province’s class of 2016 on top of the national pile.

The Eastern Cape, the worst-performing province last year with a pass rate of 59.3%,

expects an increase of about three percentage points.

Mpumalanga’s MEC, Reginah Mhaule, believes her province’s pass rate will either remain the same as last year’s 77.1% or drop because of disruptions to schooling following service delivery protests.

Maaria Kgetjepe from Limpopo was reluctant to make predictions, saying only that he hoped the decline in the past two years would be arrested.

Gauteng MEC Panyaza Lesufi said he was “very hopeful” of an improvement, and his Western Cape counterpart, Debbie Schäfer, said: “Our learners, teachers, principals and officials have worked extremely hard this year. We are confident that the class of 2017 will do us proud.”

Northern Cape education spokesman Geoffrey van der Merwe said he was hopeful of an improvement on last year’s 78.7% pass rate. KwaZulu-Natal education spokesman Muzi Mahlambi said because the MEC and superintendent-general participated in the result standardisation process they would not be able to comment.

“Anything that they now say concerning results may be viewed as speaking from an informed position and may compromise the integrity of the results,” he said.

The North West education department could not be reached.

In the Free State, lessons were streamed via the internet to more than 71 000 pupils from grades 8 to 12. Free State schools that achieve a pass rate of below 85% are regarded as underperformers.

Mhaule said schooling in Mpumalanga had been disrupted by protests in Bushbuckridge, Nkomazi and Ehlanzeni. “Children were not going to school because people would just lock the gates or chase them out.”

The Eastern Cape’s superintendent-general of education, Themba Kojana, said: “Because of the many targeted interventions we have come up with, I am confident there will be an improvement in the results.”

Among the interventions were accountability sessions with principals of schools that had underperformed for more than five years.