Not a single pupil passed at two Eastern Cape schools, a closer look at the recently published matric results shows.
They are Msobomvu High School in East London and Middle Zolo Senior Secondary in Cofimvaba, Education MEC Mandla Makupula revealed yesterday.
In 2015, two Eastern Cape schools also registered no passes – they were St Thomas School for the deaf in Stutterheim and Jama Senior Secondary School in King William’s Town.
They were among 22 schools in the country which did not have any passes then.
During the previous year, the two schools had 12 and 22 registered matrics who sat for exams.
Makupula said the impact on the overall matric pass rate was less significant as the two affected schools were smaller.
“In Msobomvu, only eight matrics sat for exams and only four sat at Middle Zolo. What I am trying to explain is that fewer pupils have been affected by this poor performance.
“The question we need to ask ourselves is why we allowed a situation wherein only four pupils sit for exams because that means if one of the four pupils fails, the school will register a 75% pass rate and if two fail, half the class has failed. That impacts negatively on the image of the school,” he added.
In 2013, two schools had no passes while in 2012, no school in the Eastern Cape recorded a zero percent pass rate.
Senior education official Ray Tywakadi said they were going to scrutinise the results by looking at the performances of individual schools “so that we can be able to provide them with the necessary support”.
Last year, the department identified 560 schools from the 924 high schools which offer matric, and provided extra support for individual schools.
Some also received e-learning, thanks to a Stellenbosch University programme being rolled out in conjunction with the department.
The 253 new telematics centres offer maths, physical science, life sciences, accounting, English, Afrikaans, geography and business studies.
Makupula said the e-learning programme enabled pupils to ask questions via SMS. He said when the support programme for the 560 schools became effective, it would be easy to achieve the 70% pass rate target. — zineg@dispatch.co.za