Angelique Serrao
28 December 2007
Cape Town — Matric pass rates in Gauteng and across the country are slightly down.
National pass rates dropped from 66,5 percent in 2006 to 65,2 percent this year, while Gauteng saw a decrease of nearly three percent, despite Education MEC Angie Motshekga's prediction of an 80 percent pass rate.
However, Gauteng's 74,6 percent - down from 78 percent last year - still put it among the top performers, with only the Western Cape doing better, with 80,6 percent.
The Eastern Cape, with a pass rate of 57,1 percent, and Limpopo, with 58 percent, continue to be the two bottom provinces.
The national pass rate has declined annually since 2003, when it was 73,2 percent.
Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said: "While the 2007 pass rate is positive in some respects, it is still negative in a number of our key performance areas.
"And while we should celebrate the successes, our primary response must be to assert that we will continue to put emphasis on the implementation of effective strategies that will support increased success at all levels of schooling."
The small decline in the pass rate is no surprise to education experts, who predicted the negative trend mainly because of the pressures resulting from the teachers' strike earlier in the year.
"These results are predictable," said Salim Vally, a researcher at Wits University's Education Policy Unit.
"Clearly we have a problem in our country, and we need to have a very thorough rethink."
He noted that the results were just one indicator of the lack of health in the education system.
"There have been internal and international systematic evaluations over the years, and in all of them, South Africa scores very badly."
Vally cited the low levels of literacy and numeracy, and the dissatisfaction and inadequate training of teachers, as some of the major issues that needed to be tackled.
There should be more focus on the outcome of education studies so that problems could be addressed much earlier than at matric level, when it was too late, he added.
Mary Metcalfe, head of the Wits School of Education, supported Vally's point that the matric results were only an indicator of 12 years of schooling - they did not show the quality of education.
"This one percent or two percent decrease is not even an issue," she said.
"This is only the culmination of 12 years of education. The results are not achieved in the final year of schooling.
"But these results will reflect the inadequacies in race and class across our country.
"We need to look at the quality of education all the way from primary school."
Noting that 21 572 Gauteng pupils had failed, Motshekga said: "I am releasing the 2007 matric results with mixed feelings.
"I remain highly impressed by those learners who continue to perform well in their studies but I am deeply hurt by the number who failed their matric examinations."
She hoped those who failed would rewrite next year and would not take "tragic decisions during this trying time in their lives".
Rej Brijraj, chief executive of the South African Council of Educators, wasn't surprised by Gauteng's results.
"I think the results will level out in the 70 percent range in future years. Only when we reach the point where we see radical changes in the whole system will we get results in the 90s," he said.
On the flip side of the coin, 63 380 passed matric in Gauteng and 20,4 percent of these - 17 324 - passed with university exemption.
The total number of distinctions in Gauteng rose from 10 857 last year to 11 802.
Another impressive Gauteng statistic is that 7 254 girls passed with distinction, beating the boys, who numbered 4 548.
In keeping with this, Gauteng's top pupil was a girl, Linda Oosthuizen, who scooped all the top awards. She averaged 799 out of 800 for maths and science.
For the 7 362 pupils who wrote Independent Examination Board exams, the future has a rosier tinge. The private schools scored a 98,93 percent pass rate, with 93 percent getting university exemption.
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