Matric results from 2008

The PMG released the National Senior Certificate 2008 Results from the DoE.

Summary:
The Department of Education briefed the Committee on its technical report on the national senior certificate results of 2008. The report looked at the examination cycle, the milestones reached, the National Curriculum Statement, National Senior Certificate requirements and the types of interventions that took place in 2008.

Of the 533 561 students that wrote the exam, 37.25% had failed or qualified for a supplementary exam. The national average pass rate was 62.5%.

Provinces that achieved below the national average were the Eastern Cape, Kwazulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.

Accounting, agricultural science, math and physical science were the lowest scoring subjects.

Results also showed that females fared better than males in most of the exams.

The National Achievement rate per quintile showed that the less resourced a school was, the poorer they performed. Quintile 1 schools, which were the poorest schools, only achieved an average pass rate of 50.10% while quintile 5 schools received an average pass rate of 84.94%. The Minister had initiated an investigation into the reasons why about 50 000 results were outstanding on the 30 December 2008.

Members were concerned that there were 200 000 learners who did not have a place in higher education due to their poor matric results. They were also concerned that so many students left school before their matric year.

The Committee noted that the math literacy results were higher than the physical science results. The Department would conduct an investigation on this.

A question was raised that there had been reports that the Mathematics paper had been below standard requirements. The Department stated that the paper had been approved by Umalusi and was not too easy. Another allegation was raised that examination markers had been told to inflate certain marks.

The Department assured the Committee that this allegation had proved to be groundless. The late submission of cumulative marks by schools was also discussed and the Department agreed that this had been very disappointing. The poor performance in certain subjects such as agricultural science would be investigated by the Department to find out where learners went wrong.

Those 24 schools that produced 0% matric results would no longer be allowed to offer Grade 11 and 12. The matter of certain “no fee” schools not receiving timely funding from the Department was also discussed.