W Cape pass rate falls
IT’S BEEN a nervous wait for thousands of matrics who are expected to get their results today.
Last night Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced the national pass rates, which showed the Western Cape had placed third out of the nine provinces with a 84.4% pass rate – a decline of 3.3% from 2016.
The top-performing province was the Free State, which attained 89.8% – a decline of 3.4% from 2016.
Gauteng took second place with 86% – a decline of 1% from 2016.
Motshekga said the class of 2017 had recorded the thirdhighest enrolment of Grade 12 pupils in the history of the basic education system in South Africa.
Education MEC Debbie Schäfer said it had been a “long, anxious wait for NSC candidates”.
“While there is a tendency to focus solely on the provincial pass rate (which is an important indicator), we must also consider other important factors and indicators of success so that we can then determine if the system is ultimately improving or where it needs to be improved.
“Traditionally, this province has put particular emphasis on the number of candidates writing and passing the NSC examinations, achieving access to a bachelor’s degree pass and passing mathematics and science, as well as the performance of our under-performing schools and the retention of learners in the system,” Schäfer said.
Motshekga said last night that if further improvement of the schooling system was wanted, “we will have to continue to improve the fundamental quality of teaching and learning well before Grade 12”,
During 2017, 802 431 candidates registered for the National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams.
This comprised 629 155 fulltime candidates and 173 276 part-time candidates. Of these, 534 484 full-time candidates and 117 223 part-time candidates wrote the 2017 NSC examinations.
Pupils in no-fee schools achieved 76 300 bachelor passes while fee-paying schools produced 67 867 bachelor passes.
This suggests that in 2017, no-fee schools produced 53% of the bachelor passes (compared with 52% in 2016 and 51% in 2015), while fee-paying schools produced 47% of bachelor passes (compared with 48% in 2016 and 49% in 2015).
“The significance of this is that the gap between the bachelor passes produced by no-fee schools versus those produced by fee-paying schools in 2016 of 4% has increased to 6% in 2017,” Motshekga said.
Of 2 777 learners with special education needs, 77.2% passed.
Schäfer said learners in the province receive their results a day later due to a number of reasons.
“(These) include the fact that principals examine the results to pick up any errors and to alert the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) regarding a candidate that may be disappointed by their results and need counselling.
“The WCED has counsellors available across the province should candidates need assistance,” Schäfer said.
“To the class of 2017, we have every confidence in our 2017 NSC candidates who have worked hard throughout the school year.
“We wish them the best of luck as they await their much-anticipated results,” she added.