Johannesburg — IF THE matric failure rates over the past few years are anything to go by (31,5%), about 188700 of the 599048 full-time matrics, who will get their marks tomorrow, will have failed.

The problem for them is that they cannot just go back to school and repeat the year -- the curriculum has changed.

To cope with this, the education department is offering them several options, including writing supplementary exams in May or June, instead of the usual February or March.

This is open to candidates who became ill during this year's matric examination period; who need to pass just one subject to pass matric; as well as those who are one requirement short of obtaining a university pass and who have passed, but do not meet the particular requirements for a higher education course they want to follow.

For those who fail outright, there are three options: complete matric through writing supplementary exams ; complete the Secondary Education Curriculum for Adults, a programme examined by the Independent Examination Board next year or in 2009; or enrol at further education and training (FET) colleges.

Next year will be the first in which the new outcomes-based curriculum, the National Curriculum Statement, is written by matric candidates who have studied the curriculum from their first days at school.

This new curriculum makes compulsory one of two mathematics options -- mathematics and mathematics literacy -- as well as life orientation and two South African languages, one of which is the language of teaching and learning. This year is the last year that matric candidates can write a selection of subjects that does not include any mathematics and life orientation.

The education department was faced with a similar problem last year when 180000 of the 850000 Grade 11s failed the year, the last in which G rade 11 was not written in the new curriculum.

Much the same options were open to these grade 11s, but the education department has no statistics on what has happened to them, says Penny Vinjevold, director-general of further education and training, which encompasses high school.

Supplementary examinations in the old syllabus can be written until 2011. The department's decision to move next year's supplementary exams to midyear has been praised by unions and others in the education sector.

Next month the department will announce where those who want to write the supplementary exams can enrol in a special intensive tuition and support programme, which will run from next month until May in centres across SA.

"They've given (candidates) more time to prepare," says Felicity Coughlan, the director of the Independent Institute of Education, a wholly owned subsidiary of ADvT ech , which is listed on the JSE. "The question and the anxiety is, are the urban and the rural schools, and the provinces, going to roll out different levels of support? "

Coughlan's concern is valid. The huge disparities between schools and provinces are common knowledge, and she is not the only one worried about this.

"We are worried about those who won't have the necessary support," says South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) further education and training officer Mafika Cele.

Theuns Laubscher, Educor's chief academic officer, says another concern is SA's high dropout rate. When repetition is taken into account, 60% of each cohort of pupils reaches matric, according to international education expert Luis Crouch, which means that it is unavoidable that schools are going to be presented with the problem of pupils who dropped out for a year and are returning to finish high school.

He says they will find themselves shut out of the three-year round of supplementary examinations because they do not have an exam number from this year, which is a prerequisite.

These people do have the option of studying the new three-year G10-12 syllabus, which is seen as a single unit, at an adult training centre, but that would be an added financial burden for already cash-strapped families, money being one of the big reasons school pupils drop out.

There are also negotiations afoot to make certain concessions on the syllabus for adults -- mostly the ditching of oral examinations, group work and continuous assessment.

"You can be a 50- or 60-year-old finishing school and the new (syllabus) doesn't make these concessions," Laubscher says.

Many of the 858048 full- and part-time matric candidates who have written exams this year had a tough time as they lost weeks of school during the month-long public sector strike, in which Sadtu was a major player.

While unions and the department have played down the possible effect of the strike, proof will come only tomorrow, when education department director- general Duncan Hindle releases this year's matric marks.

"The matrics were actually better off (than those in the lower grades), there was a recovery plan for them and they've had between 18 months and two years to prepare for this -- it was the grade 1s who suffered," says Dave Balt, president of the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of SA.

Education Minister Naledi Pandor has put a lot of work into punting the FET colleges as an alternative for school pupils who have completed Grade 9 -- the minimum entrance requirement -- and the department has set aside R225m for bursaries next year for those who choose one of the 12 new FET programmes that the state is offering.

There are 50 public and countless private FET colleges across SA. The state bursaries are for study at one of the 50 state colleges, which have been upgraded and modernised. About R1,5bn has been spent on the upgrade .

Of the 599048 full-time matric candidates, only about 17% can be expected to pass the grade with matric "endorsement" -- what used to be called "exemption" -- allowing them to enrol at university.

Coughlan says she has seen an increase in the number of FET students enrolling at ADvTech's colleges with a matric pass.

"With the change from technikons to universities of technology and comprehensives (so-called comprehensive universities that offer both university and technikon level programmes), students don't seem to see them as another option.

"You can still go to either of these without an exemption, but they don't see it that way.

"Also, they would rather do something that can give them something to do, and earn money from, in two years' time."

This is despite the fact that a first-level FET college qualification is on the same level as matric in the National Qualifications Framework.

"There is a heightened awareness of, 'Will this give me a job?'" says Coughlan.

"I think it's a good thing. I think the thing Pandor most needs to succeed at is FET."