DURBAN - The DA in KwaZulu-Natal has called on Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga to review the method used to calculate matric pass rate.
The party’s education portfolio committee member, Dr Imran Keeka, said the current method was wrong and should be changed.
He said the calculations should include pupils who entered Grade 10 and when the department calculated the matric pass rate it should take into consideration how many pupils from Grade 10 who proceeded to write matric and how many who passed and failed, and then determine the overall percentage.
Keeka said taking this method into account meant that the actual pass rate in the country was 51.4% not 76.4%, as was announced by Motshekga last week.
He said in KwaZulu-Natal the actual pass rate was 54.7% not 76.8, as was announced by MEC Kwazi Mshengu on Friday.
“The DA can today reveal that the real 2021 National Senior Certificate (NSC) pass mark in KwaZulu-Natal is 54.7%.The figure takes into account the overall number of learners who began Grade 10 in 2019 and the number that passed their matric. In KZN, there were 233 941 learners who began Grade 10 in 2019. Of this cohort, 127 990 passed matric in 2021. This means that the real pass mark for last year was 54.7%. Similarly, if we look at the national pass rate for that same period, just over a million learners entered Grade 10 in 2019 and 537 687 passed matric in 2021. This means that the country’s real pass mark in 2021 was 51.4%,” said Keeka.
He added that leading academics had long supported this method of calculating the numbers and had said that the matric class and results is an accumulation of achievements of a cohort of learners which begins in Grade 10, and the DA supported this stance.
National education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga had not commented at the time of the publication.
Daily News