Durban - THE principals and district managers of 144 schools in KwaZulu-Natal, which had pass rates below 65% in last year’s matric exams, will have to explain to Education MEC Kwazi Mshengu how they are planning to turn this around.
There are 68 days before the start of the National Senior Certificate exams.
Mshengu, who began meeting district managers and principals in the uMgungundlovu district last week, believed that a pass rate below 65% was not good enough and would hinder his plans of increasing the matric pass rate to 80% this year.
That district had achieved a 77.5% rate last year, a 4.01% decline compared with 2017.
Although all 12 education districts in KZN achieved pass rates above 70% last year, rates of 144 schools fell below 65%, 15 of which were independent schools.
Amajuba district was top with an 81.7% pass rate, while the province achieved a 76.2% pass rate, with 121 schools achieving 100% pass rates.
Giving orders to the uMgungundlovu district to do better this year, Mshengu said all schools should work at increasing pupils’ marks and upping their standards.
He planned to travel around the province to communicate the message personally.
Education Department spokesperson Muzi Mhlambi said after analysing last year’s matric results, the department decided to address the challenges of schools performing badly.
“We are worried about these schools. We have identified these schools that have weaknesses and have realised that if we do not close the gaps, we will not achieve our target of 80%,” he said.
Mhlambi said after Mshengu visited all the identified schools, the department would study each turnaround strategy and work on how the department could offer assistance.
National Teachers’ Union president Allen Thompson said they welcomed the department’s intervention and Mshengu’s effort to meet the principals of poorly performing schools, but called for the department not to neglect other schools.
Thompson said there were cases of schools that had achieved excellent results, but deteriorated because of not getting the assistance needed to continue producing good results as the department focused resources on schools that did not do well.
Educators’ Union of SA president Scelo Bhengu said the exercise to formulate turnaround strategies would not work as long as schools remained under-resourced.
He said pupils in townships and rural areas who had never seen a science lab wrote the same exam as those from resourced schools and were still expected to produce results.
“The impact of overcrowded classrooms is pushed under the carpet, and pupils are pushed from one grade to another because of age and other reasons, until they reach a dead end in their matric year,” said Bhengu.