Mixed reaction to plan to lower school pass requirements
THE Department of Basic Education has proposed dropping the requirement for grades 7‚ 8 and 9 to pass maths and reducing the pass mark for home language.
The proposal suggests pupils can obtain a pass mark of 40% instead of 50% for home language in these grades.
Department spokesman Elijah Mhlanga said the proposal still needed to be discussed by schools‚ parents and interested parties.
Mhlanga said a task team established to investigate poor curriculum implementation found the new Caps curriculum‚ implemented in 2011‚ was tripping pupils up.
He said the pass mark for grades 7 to 9 was higher than the pass mark for Grade 10 to matric.
The proposal sought to change the earlier grade pass marks to align with the pass marks for grades 10‚ 11 and 12.
The proposal for senior phase entails:
ý Removing the requirement that pupils must pass maths if they are not going to take the subject up to Grade 12;
ý Pupils will be required to attain 30% in four subjects; and
ý The pass mark for the other four subjects will be 40%, including home language.
National Teachers Union president Sipho Ngcobo said that they would not support a move that essentially lowered standards for pupils.
“Pupils are not reaching the standard‚ so it is being brought to them‚ as opposed to them being pushed to succeed‚” he said.
“We believe that we as teachers have a responsibility to move our learners to the required standard and we need the support of the department in doing that.”
Ngcobo said improving pupil performance would be achieved not by dropping the pass mark‚ but by teacher development and bolstering human resources.
The South African Teachers Union’s Chris Klopper said, however, that having a higher standard in the phases than in matric did not make sense.
“We advocated therefore that the promotion requirements for both phases should be similar.
“It also does not make any sense to require that a learner who will not take mathematics during the FET Phase [grades 10-12] must attain 40% to pass Grade 10‚” he said.
“There is no justification to fail a learner just because maths cannot be passed.” – The Times