DA drops matric pass rate bomb

A shockingly high drop-out rate used for calculating what the Democratic Alliance (DA) regards as Limpopo’s true 2016 matric results sparked a request for investigation by the Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Education. Proposing that a mere 101 807 of the 189 170 Limpopo learners having enrolled for Grade 10 in 2014 wrote matric last year, the DA in the province has expressed grave concern about the matter.
In a media statement announcing that the party has requested the portfolio committee to forthwith investigate the issue DA Provincial Leader Jacques Smalle, who is also its Provincial Spokesperson on Education, mentioned that if the pass rate was expressed as a percentage of the learners who enrolled in Grade 10, Limpopo’s real pass rate was 33,6% and not the 62,5% announced by Education MEC Ishmael Kgetjepe last week. According to available statistics 63 595 of the total 101 807 learners in Limpopo who sat for the matric exams in 2016 achieved a pass, contributing to a national rate of 72,5% being attained.
“This is an unacceptably high dropout rate of 46,2% and maybe contributed to culling of learners and/or modularisation of examinations as is allegedly the case in Waterberg to artificially inflate the district’s results. It is possible for a school, district or province to push up their pass rate simply by ensuring that fewer weaker learners write the matric exams.”
He referred to the DA already raising concern about the dropout rate in a snap debate in the Legislature in 2014 and said that despite commitments made by the MEC for Education the dropout rate had worsened. He reckoned it highlighted the desperation of Kgetjepe and his failing department to keep up appearances and in doing so close to 90 000 learners of the class of 2016 either dropped out or were stuck somewhere in the system.
National report
In an interview he quoted from the National Senior Certificate Examination Report 2016 of the Department of Basic Education when he stated that the overall results for 2016’s matric harvest were the worst since 2012. He continued stressing that if considering the fact that 20 000 more Limpopo learners wrote matric last year than any other year, the province should have produced better results than what was actually achieved. Another factor to be taken into consideration when reviewing the 2016 results was that not all progressed learners were part of the statistics, he said.
Smalle expressed concern about the Department of Education’s failure to address the quality of education in Limpopo as it was quality of results that would determine whether a learner would be able to build a future career. He singled out skills development of teachers, infrastructure backlogs and content limiting learner teacher support material at the disposal of tutors.
EFF statement
In their summary statement the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in Limpopo noted with serious disappointment the regression in results in the province as compared to the results of the previous year. The Provincial Command Team (PCT) raised the opinion that a further regression of even more than 3% was anticipated for 2017 should the situation remain the same.
The PCT was not surprised by the 2016 results as it put forward a set of challenges it reckoned that were mostly caused by the Department of Education itself. It highlighted concerns about, among others, the Post Provisioning Norm (PPN) not being in the best interest of providing quality of education while the number of educators got reduced annually amid the learner population increasing every year. It further attributed the status of this year’s results to the possible lack of adequate teacher development programmes to provide leadership in schools as well as curriculum support to schools by advisors not forthcoming due to a lack of advisors in some circuits. Another factor the EFF PCT mentioned was cadre deployment favouring South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) members at all levels within the department. According to the EFF PCT the other dominating factor was that the business of the department was no longer only central to education but also defocused to becoming the business of making money. The EFF command team reckoned Limpopo could have done better had the government promptly provided solutions to the Vuwani situation earlier, rather than allowing it to degenerate. Lastly it dealt with a change in learner support material for secondary schools teaching in literature of which it claimed not a single book had been delivered and “the notion of teaching taking place on the first day of school will not be realised and thus the status quo will remain”.
ANC statement
Kgetjepe’s own political organisation was discontent with the fact that the 2016 results represented a drop from 71% as opposed to moving towards the 90% target. “We urge the department to look into all factors leading to this decline and make necessary interventions. It is our hope that Matric 2017 will be much better,” stated African National Congress (ANC) Provincial Secretary Nocks Seabi.
He further expressed the opinion that the ANC in Limpopo felt compelled to raise discomfort with the less than satisfactory results in Capricorn and Sekhukhune districts where much needed to be done to improve the situation. He said they congratulate students who did well and took off their hats off to the learners in Vuwani who, under very difficult conditions, had been able to distinguish themselves fairly well.

Story: YOLANDE NEL
>>observer.yolande@gmail.com