Professor of education at the University of Johannesburg, Mary Metcalfe, says South Africa should move away from celebrating provincial achievements in matric results.
Metcalfe says the country should instead focus on the national picture.
She says, “And the national picture is that is that we lose more than 50 per cent of our learners who leave school, without any certificate, to move into the workplace, to move into their life with a sense of achievement and that is something of a tragedy. I don’t want to detract for the joy and the celebration of all of those learners that have done so well, but we need to not see this as one province came top but how is the country doing? And the country is not doing as well as we need it to.”
Meanwhile, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga says the 2018 matric results are the best achieved in democratic South Africa. The overall matric pass rate in the country stands 78,2 percent, including progressed learners. This shows an improvement of 3,1 percent from last year.
Of all the provinces, Free State and Gauteng have achieved the highest pass rates in districts.
Provincially, Gauteng is first, followed by the Free State and the Western Cape in second and third places respectively. This year has also shown the highest rate of progressed learners than previous years and since the implementation of the process.
Motshekga announced the 2018 matric results in Midrand on Thursday.
She described them as impressive,” Actually, this is the best, 2013 was without your progressed learners. Here, if we move your progressed learners, we’re at 79,4 percent, point-six percent short of my 80 percent target. It’s actually the best ever because we have a percentage which has your progressed learners. In 2013, we didn’t have progressed learners. It’s the highest we’ve ever achieved.”
