The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Limpopo is deeply concerned by the Limpopo Department of Education’s poor management and support for learners. It is effectively setting up our learners for failure, especially matric learners.
The province’s quality of education and support given to learners has been compromised by inappropriately qualified educators, under performance in gateway subjects, poor preparatory exams performance and general mismanagement of the province’s education system. Other challenges include dilapidated infrastructure and insufficient learning materials.
The province saw a sharp drop in pass percentages in the 2020 preparatory exams when compared to 2019 National Senior Certificate (NSC) Exams. The Mathematics pass percentage dropped from 53.1% in 2019 to 29.3%, Mathematical literacy dropped from 73.2% to 42.2% and physical sciences dropped from 72% to 54.1%. These large drops indicate insufficient support from the department during the lockdown and that this year’s matric learners will not perform anywhere near as well as the 2019 class which had the lowest pass rate in the country .
There was an underperformance and lower mark averages in 2020 preparatory exams in gateway subjects such as Mathematics, Mathematics literacy, Accounting, Physical sciences, Agriculture and Geography when compared with the 2019 results. These subjects are critical for entrance into higher education programmes and will offer a greater availability of Job opportunities.
At the end of the 2018/19 financial year it was established that in the Department there was only 17% of the 60% of the targeted teachers showing some requisite competencies of the subject they offer in specific grades. The rest did not have the required content knowledge of the subjects they teach since they did not specialise in them. This highlights the need to focus on teacher competence across the entire education system especially improving the competencies at the foundation phase.
The Department has also largely failed to support learners to the completion of their requirements for an NSC pass, this has resulted in too many learners stuck in the system. The 8082 repeaters and 12 012 progressed learners form 25% of the 79762 full time November NSC exam candidates this year and does not include the 19286 Part-Time (repeat) candidates. This is an unacceptably high number of learners that have not received sufficient support and have been essentially left behind.
Teacher absenteeism rates in Limpopo also remains too high and teacher attendance in primary schools was 92.8% and 94.1% in secondary schools. This indicates that learners find themselves without teachers for different subjects on some days. This needs to be addressed to ensure learners receive sufficient support.
There is a need for MEC for Education Polly Boshielo and the Limpopo Department of Education to address these systemic weaknesses that continuously compromise the quality of education our learners in Limpopo receive. The DA believes that education is vital in creating opportunities for our youth and is a proven vehicle for sustainable development.