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Mpumalanga’s education MEC, Reginah Mhaule, has taken responsibility for the 0.4% drop in the matric pass rate and blamed her department’s lack of a plan for “progressed pupils”.
Progressed pupils are those who are allowed to move on to the next grade when they have repeated one grade three times.
The 2015 class matric pass rate of 78.6% meant that the department failed to achieve its target of improving the pass rate by 10 percentage points, to a target of 89%.
In 2015, 54 980 pupils sat for their exams and 43 229 passed.
Mhaule told a media briefing after a matric results ceremony in Amsterdam that the department did not put plans in place to help pupils who failed Grade 11 and were pushed through to matric.
“We should have come with mechanisms to help them and the average learners, but we didn’t have a tailor-made programme for them. Some had not passed a single subject when they were progressed to grade 12,” she said.
Without these pupils, Mpumalanga’s pass rate could have increased to 82%, from 79% in 2014.
Mhaule said that next year the department would focus on these pupils by organising extra afternoon classes for them, camps, and bringing in “expert teachers” to their rescue.
“This doesn’t mean we will be stigmatising them.”
Mhaule said they would “suffer the consequences and come up with a plan for next year”.
“They can also be registered as private students so that they can only write subjects that they are prepared for and ready to pass,” she added.
The province, she said, would aim for a 10% increase in the pass rate this year.
Worst-performing principals dealt with
All 84 principals whose schools failed to achieve a 60% pass rate in 2014 were reprimanded.
Mhaule said the principals who were “chronic failures” when it came to achieving the target were removed from their positions, but most had improved.
“It is not lip service. We will meet the principals this year and those meetings are not going to be nice, of course,” she said.
Opposition congratulates Mpumalanga
The Democratic Alliance congratulated the province on its pass rate but raised a number of concerns.
Provincial DA education spokesperson, Jane Sithole, said the party was worried about the ongoing trend of pupils dropping out before they completed Grade 12.
Sithole said that it was unacceptable that 34 310 pupils were lost between 2013 and 2015.
“In 2013, 89 290 learners were enrolled in Grade 10 yet only 54 980 learners wrote their matric examinations. The department of education must focus on improving learner retention and ensure that learners are supported from the time they start school to when they complete Grade 12,” she said.
Sithole called on Mhaule to focus on improving mathematics and physical science results.
“The province has improved its performance in physical science from 58.7% to 62.6%. However, mathematics had a slight decline from 56.6% to 55.5%. The DA calls on MEC Mhaule to renew her department’s focus on delivering quality education especially in these paramount subjects,” she added.
