High failure and repetition rates continue at schools
DEPARTMENT of Basic Education director-general Matanzima Mweli yesterday said the country’s education system was still saddled with the major challenge of high failure and repetition rates at schools.
“The real challenge is not so much the drop-out rate. Our major challenge is the failure and repetition rate,” Mweli said.
He made the comments when leading a department delegation to brief the education portfolio committee on their readiness for this year’s matric exams. His remarks coincided with his presentation, which indicated there were still pupils aged 20 years and older in the schooling system.
According to Mweli, between 13% and 15.2% of pupils dropped out of school. “I hope this clarifies that (claims of) a 50% drop-out rate (are wrong),” he said.
“Some learners take more than 12 years to finish schooling. We have 29-year-olds, 28-year-olds and 27-yearolds at school. Ideally, these learners should be finishing (school) at the age of 18.”
During the presentation, the department said 790 405 matric pupils would write the final exams, a drop of 3 862 candidates from last year.
Deputy director-general for planning Paddy Padayachee said there were 620 871 full-time candidates and 169 534 part-time candidates.
Exams would be written at 7 399 centres by both full-time and part-time candidates.
Mweli said 1 860 special education needs pupils would write exams at 75 centres. “We are cautiously optimistic this year about their performance.”
At least 212 candidates would write exams at eight centres run by the Department of Correctional Services.
Pupils using sign language would write matric exams for the second year, and the number of participating schools stood at 15. Padayachee said 147 exam papers had been set, which had been approved by quality assurance group Umalusi.
Plans for centralised marking were on track for agriculture technology, music, dance studies and small-enrolment subjects, he said.
Marking was expected to start in the first week of November and be completed on December 14.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga would announce the results on the night of January 7. Results would be published in newspapers the next day.
Mweli said the department was struggling to recruit markers for some subjects, “as people are no longer motivated to mark”. He said a switch to e-marking “will help us deal with this challenge. The criteria (for marking) is that you have to teach matric and that your learners need to have performed above 60%,” Padayachee said.