Many grade 12 learners do not cope with the pressures of preparing for the matric exams
In the past three years, only a third of learners have produced passes of more than 50%, especially in critical gateway subjects such as maths and physical science.
Most passes were in the range of 30%, an analysis of the department of basic education’s examination report into the matric results of 2020 shows.
But, on Monday, the minister of basic education, Angie Motshekga said: “The high quality passes we have achieved this year, especially the number of bachelor and diploma passes, the overall pass mark, and the passes with distinctions, even in critical subjects, are the hallmarks of the performance of the class of 2020.”
The dean of the faculty of education at the University of Pretoria, Chika Sehoole, told the Mail & Guardian this week that the consistently poor performance in the majority of gateway subjects is concerning because these subjects lay a foundation for students who will go into the different sectors of the economy.
The results will be repeated for years to come unless there is a deliberate effort by the government to equip the majority of schools — which are rural — with adequate resources to support performance in these subjects.
He added that schools need good management and leadership as well as competent teachers who have laboratories and technological support to prepare learners.
Although Motshekga lauded the class for quality passes, a closer look at the results shows that the 2020 matric class did not significantly produce better results than the classes of the previous three years.
What is clear from the 2020 results is that a small number of candidates pass critical subjects with high marks.
The class of 2020 achieved 177 435 distinctions — up 13.1% from 2019 —but only a fraction of the matriculants got distinctions in the gateway subjects, similar to previous years.
This means that even though schools are producing learners who are eligible to study at university, it has not produced learners who are passing with good marks.
Of the 474 718 candidates who wrote English as an additional language, only 2.2% passed with distinctions.
More than 174 000 learners wrote physical science, but only 3.7% got distinctions.
Of the 233 315 who wrote maths, 3.2% passed with distinction.
And 118 484 learners wrote economics, but a mere 1.3% passed with distinction.
Since 2018, the number of candidates achieving distinctions in all 12 key subjects averages about 1% to 3%.
For three years now, agricultural science has failed even to make the 1% mark. In 2018 and 2019, the percentage of distinctions obtained in the subject was 0.6%, and in 2020 it was 0.8% .
(John McCann/M&G)
The department has raised the significant decline in the maths and physical science pass rates as a concern.
Of the 233 315 candidates who wrote maths, 53.8% passed, a decline of just over 1% from 2019.
The physical science pass rate in 2020 was 65.7%, a decline of about 10% from the 2019 results.
The examination report shows that the quality of the passes in maths is dismal.
Nationally, only 22% passed the subject with 50% and above. The situation is worse in rural provinces. In the Eastern Cape, only 13.6% of the candidates achieved 50% and above — a slight increase from 12.3% in 2019.
KwaZulu-Natal saw a slight increase from 16.4% in 2019 to 20.4%, while Limpopo also went up from 17.2% in 2019 to 18.8%.
The Western Cape is the only province with more learners performing at 50% and above in maths, surpassing the 35% average national performance of the past three years. The province saw 39.8% of learners get 50% and above. This is an increase from 36.9% in 2019.
Craig Pournara, the director of Marang Centre for Mathematics and Science Education at the University of Witwatersrand, said the poor performance in maths is persistent because the problems were not addressed earlier.
“We need more learners who can choose to do mathematics in grade 10 and succeed at it. This means we need to prioritise senior phase maths [grade seven and nine]. We need these learners to be in school as much as possible [not one day a week during the pandemic].
“They need to take their school work seriously. We need them to have good maths teachers. So we need good professional development programmes that focus specifically on grade eight and nine teachers,” he said.
“If we don’t get this right, then we automatically limit the number of learners who will cope with maths in grade 10. This means more go to maths literacy, and the mathematics numbers stay low. To get into university and study the sciences, we need students who are getting more than 60%, so we need to aim higher.”
The department’s report also shows that most physical science candidates were performing at 30% and above as opposed to 40% and above in the past three years.
“The number of candidates performing at 50% and above in both maths and physical sciences is significantly low at an average of 21.4% and 29.8% respectively over the past three years,” reads the examination report.
The Western Cape leads the pack in physical science. It has the highest number of learners performing at 50% and above. Close to 43% of the province’s learners hit the 50% and above mark, a decrease from about 46% in 2019.
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