KZN communities urged not to disrupt matric exams with protests

KwaZulu-Natal Education MEC Kwazi Mshengu has urged communities not to disrupt school examinations with protests.

Mshengu visited George Campbell Technical School in Durban to monitor learners writing Computer Applications Tech Paper one in the 2019 National Senior Certificate exams.

About 800 000 learners will sit for the matric finals.

KwaZulu-Natal registered about 150 000 matric learners in 2019.

Mshengu has called on parents to support the 2019 matrics.

“They need to partner with us in protecting our examinations. We need to avoid any form of disruption, and want to play it with our communities that whatever irritation that they may have in their communities they must make sure that it doesn’t spill over to disrupt this examination. Because at the end of the day these examinations are about the future of our learners; the future of these families; the future of these communities. So, we all need to partner and protect these examinations. To our learners, they must spend and continue to spend each and every hour, and every day with their textbooks so that they are guaranteed a better future.”

Matric performance

The MEC says they are confident that the province will improve on its matric performance. In 2018, KwaZulu-Natal recorded a 76.2% matric pass rate.

Mshengu says they have provided learners with all the support to ensure that they improve their results.

“We have set ourselves a target of a 80% as a minimum. Obviously, we wanted to achieve 100% with all our learners passing and obtaining quality passes for that matter. But given the totality of everything and all the challenges in the education system, we have said we want to improve from 76% last year to at least 80% and they will not be really looking for anything less than 80% this year.”