The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Limpopo would like to congratulate the 53 634 learners who passed out of the 78 695 learners who sat for the 2020 National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams, despite a drop in the provincial matric pass rate to 68.2% which is the third lowest in the country. The province has the lowest pass rate in the country (73.9%) when excluding progressed learners.
A special congratulations must go to the 22 907 students (29.1%) who achieved bachelor passes. This is an increase on the previous year but is below the national performance rate of 36.4%. 18 588 learners managed to achieve a diploma pass, while 12 134 learners achieved a higher certificate pass and 5 learners achieved a NSC pass.
The 2020 academic year was riddled with many challenges that contributed to the reduction in the province’s pass rate. Covid-19 contributed to school closures, learner and teacher absenteeism and a lack of support to learners that needed it, due to reduced contact time with learners.
These challenges and the Department’s response in the form of ICT provision, online content and virtual classes exposed a historical challenge in the province of insufficient access to internet for our learners and the lack of support from our Department of Education
It is also deeply concerning that 134 schools out of the 1370 schools in the province failed to reach a 40% pass rate, 31 of these schools failed to reach even a 20% pass rate (9 schools with 0% pass rate). The DA had anticipated that this year’s matric learners would not perform well, especially in certain gateway subjects.
There was an underperformance and less than 40% of learners managed to achieve a 40% pass or better in the 2020 NSC exams in key gateway subjects such as Mathematics (31.5%), Physical sciences (38.3%), and Economics (36.0%). These subjects are critical for entrance into higher education programmes and will offer a greater availability of job opportunities.
It is clear that there needs to be a focus on offering greater support to our learners especially in gateway subjects to improve performance. There needs to be a focus especially on the no fee paying schools to ensure they are not victims of inequality and that they are well resourced to ensure they are not disadvantaged in their preparation for the NSC.
It is encouraging that 49 schools in the province managed a 100% pass rate. There was also an increase in the number of learners that achieved bachelor passes and there were 16 bachelor passes, 9 diploma passes and 2 higher certificate passes out of 27 special need learners.
The performance of districts like Waterberg 2, Vhembe east, Vhembe west, Capricorn South that achieved pass rates over 70% must be supported to continue improving while districts like Sekhukhune East and Sekhukhune South that achieved pass rates below 60% must be supported to improve their outcomes in the NSC.
The DA urges the MEC for Education, Polly Boshielo, to learn from the harsh lessons in the 2020 academic year and provide leadership and innovative solutions in the 2021 academic year to bring an end to the continued downward trajectory of our education system. Our learners in Limpopo deserve more support and a better quality of education than they are currently getting.