The Eastern Cape matric pass rate has improved.
Final percentage increases were not available from basic education minister Angie Motshekga at the time of going to press, but the Eastern Cape legislature’s portfolio committee on education expressed joy over what they said was an improvement in the matric pass rate of 2018.
In 2017, 65% of the province’s matric class passed – up by 5.7 percentage points from the 2016 pass rate of 59.3%.
The committee’s chairperson, ANC MPL Mzoleli Mrara, said on Thursday that the latest improvement reflected hard work and dedication by all stakeholders, including pupils, educators and school governing bodies. Mrara said the improvement showed there was “value for money” invested by the provincial government in the education department.
Mrara said the legislature had approved a 4.5% increase in its adjusted budget for the department, taking its annual budget for the 2018-19 financial year to R34bn, “with the hope that outcomes will also improve”.
“As the committee, we had given the department a target of achieving a 70% pass rate for the class of 2018. Hence we are pleased by any improvement towards achieving that target.
“We told the department that if we adjust their budget upwards, we cannot accept downward results. We told them that we needed to see value for the money invested in the department,” Mrara said.
Mrara, on his second stint as committee chair since last year, said the level of seriousness he had seen when visiting schools in 2017 gave him hope that things were taking a turn for the better.
Mrara’s committee will next week be joined by the rest of Bhisho’s MPLs in visiting schools as they reopen for the new year.
One of the top four achievers, Siphamandla Cibi, 18, from Richard Varha Senior Secondary School in Dimbaza, spoke to the Daily Dispatch at a breakfast with minister of basic education, Angie Motsekga.
“Students like complaining all the time about their teachers, but my advice is that they should rather focus on the subject. I am not saying they should not voice their concerns, but they must love their subjects then automatically they will also like the teacher.”
He was delighted at being invited to the national top achievers’ awards where he represented his school and community on a national stage.
Cibi, who is an aspiring quantity surveyor, was one of four Eastern Cape pupils invited to the national event.
Another top achiever, Avukile Nkayi from Nyanga Senior Secondary School in Ngcobo, said achieving the impossible was possible only through hard work and dedication. “I began studying and preparing for my exams a long time ago. I spent almost all my time studying and preparing for the final exams.
“I looked at my time and I thought, ‘I do not have time to play around. I am dedicating all of it to my studies’.”
He applied to the University of Cape Town and University of Witwatersrand to study medicine, and was accepted by both universities.
Another happy 18-year-old, Mihlali Sipaza from Bashee Comprehensive School outside Dutywa, said he was overwhelmed to receive a call informing him he was among the top achievers in the country. “It’s very exciting. The experience is mindblowing. I am very proud of myself. I did something that I never thought I’d do. I had strict timetables and I dedicated myself to them.
“I was thinking about my family because I am doing this for them to improve their lives,” said Sipaza, who wants to be an architectural technologist.
DA MPL Edmund van Vuuren said the improvement in the matric results was a validation that showed the efforts by the department of education had paid off.
In a desperate attempt to scramble up from the bottom of the national class, the provincial education department took efforts beyond the classroom to involve parents and the community at large last year...