KZN ready for matric, says MEC
REGARDLESS of the heavy rains that destroyed its schools infrastructure, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education (DoE) confirmed it was ready to conduct the 2022 National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams.
Education MEC Mbali Frazer announced the province’s matric state of readiness at a media briefing at Inanda Seminary School on Tuesday.
“The DoE is ready to administer the 2022 NSC exams for the 198 866 full and part time candidates,” she said.
She said while they were on the ground running, teachers hard at work, learners attending classes with implementation of the academic improvement plan, their province was hit by torrential rains that led to the floods – destroying school infrastructure and costing pupils learning time.
“As a department, we had to ensure the recovery plan is put in place to ensure we recover the time lost.”
She said KZN had the biggest education system in the country, with 6 022 invigilators to manage the writing of the exams in 1 780 centres.
“The distribution of exam material will be done through 13 nodal points and 103 distribution and collection centres. The Province of KZN will print 120 question papers, which will total 34 million pages. There will be 28 morning and 27 afternoon sessions in the 2022 NSC exams,” she said.
She said their 2022 academic year started with a sense of relief and optimism, unlike the 2020 and 2021 academic years.
Frazer said for the class of 2022 to be ready and sharpened for the exams, the department developed the 2022 Academic Improvement Plan whose objectives were in line to improve the pass rate percentage from 76.8% to a maximum of 100%, if not minimum of 80%.
“However, the reality is there are other factors which sometimes make it difficult to pass all our learners in the system and that is where we say, if we don’t attain 100%, we need to ensure we do not obtain less than 80%, which will still be a great improvement from the 2021 NSC results,” she said.
She said part of their academic plan was to increase the number of schools that obtained a 100% pass rate, improve Bachelor passes by 5%, and improve passes in maths, sciences and other technical subjects.
The MEC said they had winter classes to prepare pupils and ensure they were ready for the final exams.
The winter tuition aimed at facilitating effective curriculum coverage for teachers and learners. It also achieved the following aims:
♦ To provide opportunity for learners to revise their work, attempt previous exam papers and consult with their teachers before exams.
♦ To provide a platform for schools to cluster learners/schools of the same level of performance and deal with common challenges.
♦ To expose learners in camps to effective study methods after tuition.
♦ To familiarise learners to all the levels of questioning, in line with the standards of the NSC exams.
♦ To deal with under-performance in subjects as identified in the 2021 diagnostic reports and during first quarter assessment, especially in gateway subjects in economic management, natural, maths and social sciences, and high enrolment languages.
Frazer maintained that the department would do well in these exams.
“We want to thank our primary trusted resource, our educators, for the sterling work and for the dedication that they always displayed,” she said.