Matric class biggest in history
The class of 2015 is the biggest matric class in South Africa’s history.
|||Cape Town - The class of 2015 is the biggest matric class in South Africa’s history.
At a media briefing in Pretoria, Mathanzima Mweli, the director general of Basic Education, said a record number of matric candidates, 674 232, had registered for the National Senior Certificate exams this year.
The class of 2002, the previous biggest group, had about 626 000 pupils.
Last year there were 551 588 candidates.
Mweli said statisticians would say that with the larger group, the results were likely to take a dip “but you know we have a history of beating the odds”.
He said there were teachers, parents and officials that “were working flat out”.
Special camps had been held for pupils who had been progressed to Grade 12 – in other words, pupils who had not met the pass requirements for Grade 11 but were moved to Grade 12.
Mweli said there had been focused interventions.
“We hope that the interventions will get us an improvement instead of a dip.”
KwaZulu-Natal has the highest number of candidates – 171 714.
The Western Cape has about 56 000 candidates, most of who will sitting for the English papers on Monday.
This year there are 121 marking centres across the country while 10.7 million question papers will have to be printed.
“This has to be guarded with our dear lives,” said the department’s Rufus Poliah.
He said there would be “zero tolerance for exam irregularities” this year.
“The human element is what we can’t control fully.”
The department would ensure that the markers appointed were competent.
He said there had been an audit of markers in each province.
Requirements include that the classes they teach have to pass with an average of 50 percent or above in the relevant subject.
They should also have studied the subject at university at a second year level.
Last year, the national matric pass rate was 75. 8 percent. The Western Cape achieved a pass rate of 82.2 percent.
Quality assurance body Umalusi will be expected to announce on December 30 whether the results had been approved for release.
The national and provincial results are scheduled to be released on January 5 and individual candidates’ results on January 6.
ilse.fredericks@inl.co.za
Cape Argus
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