Yesterday, you could cut the tension with a knife in South Africa as matriculants eagerly awaited their results.

At the same time, the Department of Basic Education was throwing out hints that we’d reached the highest pass rate ever – a possible, whopping, 80%.

As we pointed out, a lot has changed over the last 10 years, and that includes what we define as a ‘pass’. It’s also now possible to obtain not one, but one of three different certificates after writing the National Senior Certificate exams.

Anyway, the wait is over. BusinessTech reports that Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga (above) announced on Tuesday evening that the matric pass rate for the class of 2019 is 81,3%.

As you can imagine, the Department of Basic Education, and its minister, are very pleased with themselves.

Also this:

#MatricResults2019 WATCH: ‘1.1 million 763 million’ – Motshekga nearly has her own Zuma number moment pic.twitter.com/Jv5shdMnNb

— Somayya Sujee (@sujee_somayya) January 7, 2020

A real throwback to the Zuma era.

While that 81,3% pass rate is seen as a success by many, if you look at things from a different angle, that number is completely inflated.

According to Nomsa Marchesi, Democratic Alliance shadow minister of basic education, the “real” matric pass rate, is much lower, at only 38,9%.

In 2017, a total of 1 052 080 learners were enrolled in grade 10, yet only 409 906 learners eventually passed matric last year. This means only 38.9% of grade 10 learners actually wrote and passed matric, the shadow minister said.

“This is for the most part due to an extraordinarily high drop-out rate, which means that hundreds of thousands of learners are denied the chance to write matric, let alone pass it.”

2015 saw the highest number of students who sat to write their matric exams. Since then, the numbers have been steadily declining. This, from MyBroadband:

The Western Cape is the province with the lowest drop-out rate (33.4%) and therefore the highest real pass rate, standing at 54.8%.

The Free State, which is the top-performing province with a pass rate of 88.4%, has such a high drop-out rate that its real pass rate only stands at 38.4%.

You can check out a table with the real pass rates for each province, here.

Meanwhile, instead of dealing with the reality of the situation in South Africa, Motshekga was quick to congratulate herself, joking that she was ready to retire after the country’s pass rate increased from 78.2% in 2018. “What more do you want?”, she asked.

Uhm, a decent education system?

The problem doesn’t end with matric, either. Last year, government published a review of the last 25 years of democracy, noting that only 22% of undergraduate students starting their studies in 2010 at South African universities managed to complete their degrees in the allotted three year period – a statistic that has a lot to do with the fact that primary and secondary education doesn’t prepare students for higher education.

It gets worse – only 39% completed their degrees by the fourth year. By year six, only 56% of the students who registered in 2010, had completed their three-year degree.

These stats are not improving as the years go on which means that even if students manage to achieve the matric bachelor’s pass necessary to attend a university or technical college, there’s no guarantee that they’ll have what it takes to actually earn a degree.

With that in mind, we have to question the real value of a matric certificate. It’s not enough to simply hike up the numbers or jig the system to make it easier to pass.

What’s clear is that the system needs a complete overhaul.

And, if Motshekga is serious about retiring, you won’t hear any complaints from me.

[source:businesstech&mybroadband]