BEST PERFORMING DISTRICT IS SELDIBENG EAST, RURAL PUPILS STRUGGLED MOST - 2015 MATRIC EXAM

THE 2015 matric exam national pass rate has dropped to 70.7%, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said yesterday.

This was down from 75.8% achieved in 2014, she said at the release of the results in Midrand, Joburg.

She added that had “progressed learners” had not been added to the total, the pass rate would have been 74%.

These were pupils who failed Grade 11 twice and were promoted to Grade 12 without meeting the passing criteria.

South Africa’s three biggest rural provinces, which have over half the country’s pupils, were largely responsible for the drop in the pass rate, Motshekga said.

“The number of matriculants that failed in these three provinces gave us a drop of 9%,” she said. She was referring to Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, and the worst performer, the Eastern Cape.

Motshekga said of the 65 100 “progressed learners” who were pushed through, 22 000 passed.

The policy was implemented in 2013.

The reasoning behind it was that those Grade 11s who failed twice would drop out of the system anyway so it was decided to “give them a chance”, Motshekga said.

“MECs had lots of pressure from schools about this decision.”

Despite the drop, she was happy that they had been able to keep the national pass rate above 70%.

The total number of distinctions increased from 59 891 to 63 348. More girls than boys got bachelors’ passes.

“We have a special plea to pupils who did not succeed to say this is not the end of the world. There is a seguys ask cond chance matric programme available. We are encouraging all learners to come for the second chance programme,” she said.

Some statistics that point to the successes and failures of the Class of 2015:

• KwaZulu-Natal continues to account for the largest number of learners (25%).
• No district in the Western Cape performed below 80%. The province is the top performer in the country, and the best overall matric pupil, Andrew Tucker, comes from SA College High in Cape Town.
• Best performing district is Sedibeng East.
• 20 965 schools are no fee schools – this is 87.14% of public schools.
• The class of 2015 is the eighth group of learners to sit for the National Senior Certificate. They entered the schooling system in January 2004.
• 799 306 pupils wrote the matric exam – 667 925 were full-time and 131 381 part-time. This is the highest number of candidates ever to write matric exams in South Africa.
• Read: Mpho Mokoena: The genius that scored 100% in all his matric subjects

Source: - Dailysun