How school with 85% pass rate held back 228 pupils
‘Progressed’ pupils denied chance to write full exam
Tshehlwaneng Senior Secondary School in rural Limpopo recorded an 84.6% matric pass rate for 2017.
But behind the façade of a proud achievement, a staggering 228 matric pupils did not get a chance to write their full final exams.
Only 26 other pupils did, 22 of whom passed, creating an impression that the school had achieved top results.
The school had the highest number of “progressed” pupils in the country last year. Progressed pupils are pushed into Grade 12 despite failing Grade 11. Many end up writing matric over two years — four subjects in November, three the following June.
However, the Department of Basic Education allows them to write their full exams over one year if they pass at least five subjects in their trial exams.
Some education experts have described the misleading pass rate at Tshehlwaneng as an example of how figures can be “massaged” to reflect an inaccurate picture of pupils’ performances.
Nationally, 69 575 “progressed” pupils are set to write the final tranche of their exams in June. Of the 34 011 able to write their full exams last year, 18 751, or 55.1%, passed.
Dozens of schools had more than 100 progressed pupils in matric last year.
But an angry 19-year-old pupil from Tshehlwaneng said the acting principal, D Tema, had shattered his dream of attending university this year after refusing to allow any progressed pupils to write the full exam last November — irrespective of their performance in the trial exams.
The pupil, who met the requirements of a bachelor’s pass in his trial exams, said: “I am disappointed. He told us some time in June that if you pass the trials you are going to write them all [in November]. Later, he said those who had been ‘progressed’ to Grade 12 won’t be allowed to write all their exams in November.”
He had planned to study financial management at North-West University’s Vaal campus. “A teacher told me he was disappointed I wasn’t given the chance to write all [the exams] because he knew I was capable of passing.”
His 40-year-old unemployed mother said she felt “a year has been wasted”.
A teacher at the school, who did not want to be named, said she believed at least nine or 10 “progressed” pupils had met requirements to write all the exam in one sitting.
Tema referred queries to the Limpopo education department.
Department spokesman Sam Makondo did not respond to specific questions on Tshehlwaneng, but said progressed pupils were often advised to write over two years because “if they are allowed to write all subjects, they are likely to fail”. He said 7 681 out of the 23 254 progressed pupils in Limpopo had qualified to write full exams last year.
Sydney Mothemela, the acting principal of Makhutjisha Senior Secondary School in Limpopo, said: “He [Tema] might have not understood the policy. Some principals do not come to the workshops and rely on information from others. It might have happened: I don’t know.”
Mothemela allowed nine of the 81 progressed pupils at his school last year to write the full exams and all passed.
Felix Maringe, a professor in educational leadership and policy studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, said pupils who did well in the trial exams should be given the chance to write the exams at one sitting. “Ultimately, the final decision should be made by the learner and not the school.”
Commenting on Tshehlwaneng’s 84% pass rate, he said: “This massaging of figures is . . . the big elephant in the room. At the end of the day we are not getting the true picture of the performance of learners.”
Johan Muller, an emeritus professor at the University of Cape Town, said the “progressed learning option” was “a fair second shot” for pupils who had a bad schooling.
Basic education spokesman Elijah Mhlanga said: “It is erroneous for academics to regard modularisation as gatekeeping. To put it simply, 107 430 learners who should have been in Grade 11 were allowed in Grade 12. This is furthest from any notion of gatekeeping.”