‘We have prioritised quantity over quality’ — politicians react to matric results

19 Jan 2023

Despite the matric cohort of 2022 achieving an 80.1% pass rate — an improvement of 3.7% over the 76.4% pass rate of 2021 — members of Parliament and Build One South Africa’s Mmusi Maimane have cautioned against celebrating quantity over quality.

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga, who has been at the helm of the Department of Basic Education for 14 years, on Thursday announced the results of the 2022 matric exam results.

She said the 80.1% pass rate achieved by the 2022 class represented a record of 580,555 candidates who had passed the 2022 National Senior Certificate exams.

“It should be noted that, while the pass rate in number of the class of 2022 is the highest in the history of the National Senior Certificate examinations, when the pass rate is expressed as a percentage, that of the class of 2019, which attained an 81.3% pass rate, stands out as the highest so far.”

The class of 2022 faced challenges including Covid-19 and Eskom’s rolling blackouts.

Pass rate of 80.1% ‘meaningless’

Build One South Africa’s Mmusi Maimane said that while he congratulated the class of 2022, the pass rate of 80.1% was meaningless.

“We are educating young people for unemployment. When you interrogate the numbers, 278,814 qualify to study towards the Bachelor’s degree. That is out of 775,000 — which means our Bachelor’s pass is below 35%. We have an education minister who is setting this country up for profound failure for young people.”

Maimane said the only positive was that the retention rate was decreasing, but more work needed to be done and vital interventions were needed.

“I would never want my child to leave school and they can’t use technology. When she [Motshekga] says they have done well under load shedding, I am not sure which child must leave school and when you show them a computer, they see it for the first time at university. We have prioritised quantity over quality.”

Actual pass rate ‘only 54.6%’

The DA’s shadow minister of basic education, Baxolile Nodada, said the real 2022 matric pass rate was only 54.6%, an increase from 2021’s 50.4%. Every year the DA calculates the matric pass rate by bringing into account the number of learners who dropped out and never made it to matric.

“This is very concerning,” he said. “Some learners opt out of schooling at the end of Grade 9 to pursue their education through technical and vocational education and training [TVET], but a large number simply stop their education entirely. To bring the TVET learners into account, the DA calculates the real matric pass rate from the Grade 10 cohort that ought to complete matric.”

Nodada added that the dropout rate for the 2022 matric class was 31.8% (337,364 learners).

“Unless [the Department of Basic Education] addresses the twin issues of the high dropout rate and the ineffective curriculum offering that fails to fully develop knowledge and skills to access economic opportunities, the majority of matriculants’ future will be very limited.”

‘Seal of approval’

Siphosethu Ngcobo from the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) said it was encouraging that the Executive Committee of Umalusi Council had approved the results and that the irregularities identified had not compromised the overall credibility and integrity of the exams.

“This ‘seal of approval’ is reassuring, as it indicates that there were no scripts leaked or large-scale incidents of cheating,” he said.

“We are pleased to observe that there was an increase in the pass rate across all nine provinces. However, special mention must be made of KwaZulu-Natal, who achieved the biggest improvement, up from 76.8% to an 83% pass rate — this, despite the devastating floods in April 2022.”

‘Quality must improve’

National Freedom Party (NFP) parliamentary leader Ahmed Munzoor Shaik Emam also welcomed the improved results, but said more work needed to be done to improve the quality of basic education.

“Especially in the field of maths and science. My other concern is the high dropout rate and 60% of those that pass matric are supposed to be absorbed in the labour market, but they are not because there are no jobs.”

He added that many of those who go to TVETs drop out in the first year because they are not prepared because of the poor quality of education in South Africa.

“Until we decide to improve the quality of education in the country, we are not going to be doing justice to the learners. We have the Fourth Industrial Revolution at our doorstep — is our school [system] preparing them for that? In government schools, there is no emphasis on skills and expertise in sports, arts and culture… our emphasis is on quantity rather than quality.”

Praise for perseverance

The EFF also commended the class of 2022 and said they had endured many challenges.

“This feat by these young people, particularly those that have not been afforded the luxuries that come with the separate development that is entrenched by the Independent Examination Board (IEB), is both inspiring and saddening as no young person should pursue education through difficult and dehumanising conditions.”

The party said the Department of Basic Education was the last sector of society that had the right to be boastful about the resilience, courage and perseverance of a youth that has largely been “deprived of an environment that is conducive to teaching and learning”. DM

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South Africa

Pass rate of 80.1% ‘meaningless’

Actual pass rate ‘only 54.6%’

‘Seal of approval’

‘Quality must improve’

Praise for perseverance