South African national Education Minister Naledi Pandor is to visit schools which have produced senior certificate results of between zero and 20% in the 2005 examinations.
Speaking on SAfm radio on Friday morning — following the release of senior certificate results on Thursday — the minister said that she would “crack the whip” at these schools. She said she would be visiting such schools “in the next two weeks”.
According to the senior certificate report on the 2005 examinations results, 0,5% of schools produced zero passes. This was down from 0,8% in 2004.
A further 2,4% of schools produced passes of between zero and 20,9% — slightly down from 2,5% last year.
The other statistics show that schools that produced between 41% and 60,9% passes represented 22,8% of schools — compared to 19,3% last year. Of schools that produced results of between 61% and 80,9%, a figure of 26,1% applied — compared to a lower figure of 23,9% last year.
However, the number of schools with an 81% to 100% pass rate dropped from
45,2% last year to 36,7% in 2005.
Those producing a 100% pass rate dropped from 10,5% to 8,2% in this time.
According to the report of the 6 203 schools which wrote the senior certificate examination, 2 278 or 36% obtained a pass percentage of above 80% and only 148 schools — or 2,4% — obtained a pass percentage of below 20%.
Altogether 508 schools scored a 100% pass rate, 31 schools — 0,5% — scored a pass percentage of 0%. However, the number of schools with 0% had decreased
from 62 last year.
The report noted that the minister had led a campaign to eliminate under-
performance. There had been a reduction of schools where there was a pass rate of below 50%. While in 2004 there were 1 463 schools which performed below this figure, this dropped to 1 384 in 2005. – I-Net Bridge