The Democratic Alliance has broken down the reality of South Africa’s latest matric pass rate – showing that only 37.6% of learners who were in grade 10 in 2016 actually went on to pass matric in 2018.
The party’s shadow minister of education, Nomsa Marchesi, said that those learners who passed should be congratulated – but that it should not distract from the shocking truth facing the country.
“The real matric pass rate is 37.6% if you include the number of 2016 Grade 10s who actually passed matric in 2018,” she said.
“These Grade 10s should be celebrating with other matriculants, but more than half didn’t write matric in the expected timeframe. This means only 37.6% of these Grade 10s passed matric. The others have either become stuck in a struggling education system repeating grades, or worse, dropped out of the system completely.”
This becomes even more revealing on a provincial level, she said.
While the Free State and Gauteng education MECs were celebrating being the top two provinces in the department of education’s reported data, this was “a slap in the face to the learners they failed to serve along the way,” Marchesi said.
In Gauteng, 45% of its Grade 10s in 2016 didn’t write matric, while the Free State has the highest drop out in the country, and according to the DA has a well-known reputation for ‘culling’, or intentionally keeping back learners to inflate pass marks, as confirmed by a Deputy Director-General of the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in 2017.
The table below outlines the true pass rates for the class of 2018 – including the learners that where left behind.
| Province | Gr10 (2016) | Wrote NSC (2018) | % of Gr10 who wrote | Passed NSC | Pass rate | ‘Real’ Pass rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Limpopo | 184 028 | 76 730 | 41.7% | 53 254 | 69.4% | 28.9% |
| Eastern Cape | 148 346 | 65 733 | 44.3% | 46 393 | 70.6% | 31.3% |
| Northern Cape | 23 082 | 9 909 | 42.9% | 7 264 | 73.3% | 31.5% |
| North West | 66 550 | 29 061 | 43.7% | 23 578 | 81.1% | 35.4% |
| Free State | 61 244 | 24 914 | 40.7% | 21 806 | 87.5% | 35.6% |
| KwaZulu Natal | 243 935 | 116 152 | 47.6% | 88 485 | 76.2% | 36.3% |
| Mpumalanga | 90 201 | 44 612 | 49.5% | 35 225 | 79.0% | 39.1% |
| Gauteng | 172 507 | 94 870 | 55.0% | 83 406 | 87.9% | 48.3% |
| Western Cape | 77 182 | 50 754 | 65.8% | 41 350 | 81.5% | 53.6% |
| South Africa | 1 067 075 | 512 735 | 48.1% | 400 761 | 78.2% | 37.6% |
Read: South Africa’s ‘real’ 2018 matric pass rate is under 50%
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