When Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced the 2016 matric results‚ she congratulated the Free State for breaking the 90% threshold with its pass rate. But a closer inspection of the results reveals that this is not the full story.
Last year‚ the number of progressed pupils registered for matric increased significantly. These pupils did not meet the requirements to be promoted to Grade 12, but were passed because they had already been held back once in the senior education phase.
When Motshekga announced the results she noted that they had been presented in two ways – including and excluding progressed pupils. When the number of progressed pupils was included‚ the national pass rate dropped from 76.2% to 72.5%.
In an executive summary of the results‚ in the department’s examination report‚ this is how each province fared when progressed pupils were included:
• Free State 88.2%;
• Western Cape 86%;
• Gauteng 85.1%;
• North West 82.5%;
• Northern Cape 78.7%;
• Mpumalanga 77.1%;
• KwaZulu-Natal 66.4%;
• Limpopo 62.5%; and
• Eastern Cape 59.3%.
Motshekga did not announce this provincial breakdown in her speech on Wednesday evening. Instead she reported the provincial results excluding progressed pupils.
When progressed pupils were excluded‚ the Free State obtained 93.2%‚ the Western Cape 87.7%‚ Gauteng 87% and North West 86.2%.
Although the inclusion of progressed pupils pushed the national pass rate down by almost four percentage points‚ Motshekga said that the policy of progression had borne fruit.
Of these progressed pupils‚ 3,335 obtained bachelor passes‚ 12,636 obtained diploma passes and 13,385 obtained higher certificate passes.
Progressed pupils also achieved 2,361 distinctions‚ compared with 1,081 in 2015‚ with some of these attained in accounting‚ mathematics and physical science.
"The significance of these achievements‚ is that the 29,384 progressed learners who passed the 2016 NSC examinations — the would-be high school dropouts if they were not progressed — now have the opportunity to either go to university or TVET College‚" said Motshekga.
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