Durban - In two or three years, a matric certificate will be more difficult to earn. Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga and her provincial education MECs have agreed that the much-maligned matric pass requirements must be raised, her department said on Tuesday.
The reform was a recommendation of a ministerial task team appointed to evaluate the National Senior Certificate.
The decision follows the raising of the pass requirements for grades 7, 8 and 9 this year and was taken at a meeting of Motshekga and education MECs in Pretoria on Monday.
A statement explained that a change in the matric pass requirements must occur incrementally.
The meeting also resolved that pupils’ names would not be published alongside their matric results. Instead, only their ID and exam numbers would appear in print.
Currently, to obtain a matric certificate, pupils must pass six of seven subjects, three with at least 40% and the others with at least 30%.
Basic Education Department spokesman Elijah Mhlanga could not say how the pass requirement would be adjusted, as this was yet to be decided.
The ministerial task team acknowledged the “widespread” public and professional concern about the matric standard.
The task team recommended:
* That there be a greater degree of distinction between the different levels of passes (whether a pupil obtains a basic matric certificate, qualifies for higher certificate study, a diploma or Bachelor’s studies).
* Making it tougher for a pupil to pass well enough to qualify for university study.
* Doing away with life orientation as a subject.
* Raising the pass mark in the language of teaching and learning.
* Making the exam in the language of teaching and learning tougher, so that 15% instead of 40% of the paper consists of questions that have a low level of cognitive demand.
On Tuesday, teachers’ unions questioned whether quality education was represented by a raised matric pass requirement. Mhlanga said that while this was a valid point, the curriculum could not be strengthened without raising the benchmark.
Basil Manuel, the president of the National Professonal Teachers’ Organisation of SA, said they did not want a system that condemned children to failure. “I’m sceptical of whether all the ramifications have been thought through,” he said.
Allen Thompson, the deputy president of the National Teachers’ Union, welcomed the decision, with the proviso that schools must be better resourced and class sizes become smaller.
Nkosana Dolopi, the deputy general secretary of Sadtu, said: “We must… debate what we mean by quality education.”
The Mercury