Working out percentages can be tough. All that dividing by 100, moving decimal places around, it’s enough to make you want to have a lie down.

But, when you are the education MEC, you would think it is something of a requirement that one is able to perform basic arithmetic.

The Free State ranked third in 2014’s matric pass rates, with just shy of 83% of students obtaining a passing grade. But here is where the DA disagrees somewhat, to the tune of 42% nogal.

According to TimesLive last year Tate Makgoe, our afore-mentioned MEC, told the legislature that 55 625 pupils had registered for Grade 10 in 2012. Two years later, according to the DA’s Mariette Pittaway, only 26 078 had registered for matric.

By factoring in the pupils who were supposed to have been in matric, but had failed or dropped out of school before the writing the exams, the actual pass rate was 39 percent, said Pittaway.

So whilst it looks like the difference between the two is based on how one should actually calculate the pass rate, it is still something of a facepalm moment for all involved when the difference between these two figures is so marked.