Johannesburg - Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga is not disappointed by the lower matric pass rate because she had been expecting it.
The pass rate will stabilise only in the next four years, she believes.
Speaking at an event in Midrand on Tuesday to honour the best achievers of the class of 2015, she announced that she would be launching a new programme, dubbed Second Chance, on Wednesday at Ivory Park Secondary School to encourage failed candidates to re-register. The matric pass rate peaked at 78.2 percent in 2013.
Motshekga said one of the key factors behind the dip in the pass rate had been the department’s policy of progressing pupils who have failed a grade more than twice. The departmental policy is that no pupil can repeat a grade more than twice
Provincial education departments last year put the 85 857 progressed pupils in intensive matric study camps, offered remedial classes and subject tutoring.
“We’ve succeeded more than we hoped. There are kids who have been failing Grade 10, 11 and 12 and the chances are that they will drop out and run away. So the best thing was to give them a second chance. The other major thing is that we have increased the cognitive demands on the papers, and that is why we are giving them support. The whole thing is to really increase the quality of our papers. When there are more learners writing, that means there are more learners needing support,” she said.
Motshekga said the department hoped things would improve over the next four years.
“We need to clear the pipeline of most of these kids who are stuck in Grade 10 and 11. We are going to launch a vocational stream, and that can only start to clear the pipeline from Grade 9, to divert more learners who are not academically inclined and only focus on matrics who are academically inclined.
“Until we have been able to clear that pipeline we are unlikely so see any dramatic increase,” she said.
Quality assurer Umalusi's chairman Professor John Volmink announced late last month that there had been 26 alleged cases of group copying in four provinces - Gauteng (6), KwaZulu-Natal (12), Limpopo (1) and Mpumalanga (7).
Motshekga said the group-copying phenomenon was not a new thing.
“It’s just that they caught it and we had to tighten our system. Most of the group copying, for instance in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape, is not done by government schools, it’s fly-by-nights: these independent schools. Because they have not taught kids adequately. In KwaZulu-Natal it is because we did not teach adequately. This gives you a sense of the bigger issues in the system that kids and schools are facing. Some of these bad things are important in showing us what the problems are,” she said.
Gauteng had only four candidates among the top performers.
One of them, Ernest Molelle from Reiger Park Secondary School, who was in Lesotho when he was informed he had to come to the breakfast with the minister.
“I am overwhelmed to be one of the best performers. Everyone was very supportive during matric. They all believed in me,"he said.
Ernest plans to study actuarial science at the University of Cape Town.
Limpopo has the highest number of high achievers at seven.
One of them, Selby Rihapfu, from Rivoni School for the Blind, said he faced difficulties in writing his exams.
“My eyes gave me problems at the end of the year and I couldn’t study. The school was very supportive and they encouraged me to continue.”
The school got him a machine that read the question papers for him to help him with the exams.
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