Cosas calls for scrapping of IEB exams

THE CONGRESS of South African Students (Cosas) has called for the Independent Examination Board (IEB) National Senior Certificate to be scrapped, saying it created division and strengthened inequality.

This comes in the wake of results this week from last year’s matric exams which showed a much higher pass rate for students in private schools than the national score.

The Department of Basic Education reported a national pass rate of 81.3% for all South African schools, but this was much higher, at 98.82%, for just the IEB schools.

“IEB must be scrapped as an urgent matter because it has an element of making other learners feel less important than others who have the privilege of getting different results even before them,” Cosas said.

It noted that a study conducted by UCT had shown that IEB candidates made up a quarter of the institution’s graduates in December 2007.

“The drop-out rate of IEB matrics was only 2% compared to an estimated 35% to 50% at South African universities on the whole,” the student body said.

It called on Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga to hold discussions with officials from the country’s provinces on how to improve their matric results.

The Gauteng and Free State provinces have tended to outperform the other seven in recent years.

In the latest results, the Free State claimed top honours, with an 88.4% pass rate, while Gauteng came second with 87.2%. |