At the beginning of a new year, the minister of Basic Education will announce the National Senior Certificate (NSC) results. During this announcement, the minister will reveal what percentage of matriculants passed in each of South Africa’s nine provinces.
This announcement of results is released with accompanying documents which reveal the pass rate(s) individual schools achieved in the matric results.
Professor Jonathan Jansen says the political spectacle around matric pass rates is placing pressure on schools to perform. This as many individuals view pass rates as an indication of the health of the education system in South Africa.
However, this measurement of performance could lead to the manipulation of results. Jansen explains that the manipulation of results is done through two methods.
The first method involves holding learners back from progressing to grade 12 if they are deemed to be on a trajectory of being unsuccessful during the NSC examination.
The second method is to encourage learners to change their subjects. This sees learners dropping subjects that are seen to be difficult to a more manageable subject.
“That is especially true for the one only school subject that has an alternative with the same name and that is Mathematical Literacy. So you are pushed from mathematics to maths lit because the assumption is it is easier to pass maths lit,” explained Jansen.
They added that this paints a picture of a healthy education system in which the school and the education department looks good despite the fact that half the learners drop out between grade 2 and grade 11.
Jansen believes that a measurement of progress in the education system should guide the levels of literacy and numeracy in the foundation stages of school. Another measurement of progress should involve the amount of learners who’ve achieved a matric pass that qualifies them to enter university.
