No more bonus marks for matrics

A POLICY which gave matrics whose first language was not English or Afrikaans an additional five percent of their original mark in subjects including geography and maths has been scrapped. This year’s matric pupils will be the first not to benefit from the policy since 1999.The rationale for the policy, intended as an interim measure, was to compensate for the disadvantage faced by pupils forced to write their final exams in a language which was not their mother tongue. The policy meant that if a pupil’s original mark in a non-language subject such as history or economics was 50 percent, they would receive an additional 2.5 percentage points.
Basic Education spokesman Elijah Mhlanga said the department was “confident” that discontinuing the policy would not adversely affect the performance of pupils.
“Much has been done over the last few years to improve the language competency of learners across all grades,” Mhlanga said.
Professor Servaas van der Berg, of the economics department at Stellenbosch University, said language problems needed to be dealt with in the early schooling years, not matric. He agreed with the scrapping of the policy, as it “diluted” the value of the matric certificate.
Van der Berg said training teachers on how to teach English at the second-language level was critical.
Professor Leketi Makalela, of the school of education at the University of the Witwatersrand, said the policy was “an excuse for not dealing with the fundamental problem” and that pupils instead needed to be given access to knowledge.
Makalela argued that pupils should be taught in their mother tongue up to Grade 6, and then be able to attend dual-medium schools. He suggested that matrics be provided with copies of question papers translated into their first languages when they sat the exams.