DA to intensify monitoring of GBV cases in Upington
| by Priscilla Isaacs, MPL – DA Northern Cape Spokesperson for Education Date: 08 January 2020Release: Immediate The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape notes the improvement of 3.2% in the National Senior Certificate results for the province, as the provincial pass rate increased to 76.5%.We congratulate every individual learner whose hard work contributed to this improvement.A special acknowledgement must be given to all learners who excelled, whether through receiving the highest marks for subjects or whether through continued effort despite difficult circumstances. Learners who did not achieve their desired outcomes must make use of the Multiple Examination Opportunity in June and July.We applaud the support and encouragement given to our learners by their families and guardians, their educators and their school communities at large. Learners’ successes depends on the sustained support from families, educators, principals, school governing bodies, as well as administrative support from the department.We also congratulate learners and the school community from Namaqua, whose hard work ensured that their district retained top performing status for the province with an improvement from 83.7% in 2018 to 89.9% in 2019. Let’s make it 100% in 2020!Likewise, we congratulate the school community of John Taolo Gaetsewe. The district is historically notorious for poor educational outcomes and to see an improvement from 73.2% in 2018 to 77.8% is encouraging, as the problem child of the past is now the second highest performing district in the province.Sadly, we cannot just send our congratulations without also sending our heartfelt condolences to the loved ones of eight learners who passed away and who could not see the fruit of their efforts.We do agree with the comment from the Member of the Executive Council for Education, Honourable Mac Jack, that today is only a partial celebration. While individual learners do us proud, we still cannot celebrate a provincial pass rate which remains a measure of mediocrity and a reflection of collective challenges in the system as a whole.The provincial pass rate does not reflect the fact that many schools still struggle to obtain an acceptable pass rate, for reasons ranging from socio-economic challenges and crime to indifferent educators and poor quality of administrative support from the department. As a starting point, the results do not reflect poor retention of learners, especially learners who are forced by socio-economic hardships to leave school early. The impact of culling and gatekeeping, denying learners regarded at risk of poor academic outcomes the opportunity to prove the naysayers wrong, is also not reflected in these results.A total of 39 schools from the 139 schools whose learners wrote the exams had pass rates below 70%, which is far too little for learners to succeed with further studies. Of these 39 schools, 12 schools or nearly a third had achieved pass rates below 70% since at least 2017. These schools require intensive, multi-disciplinary engagements and urgent intervention by the department as well as the Portfolio Committee of Education to bring about stability and to improve the results. This is particularly crucial for the seven schools receiving below 50%.We do agree with the premier, Dr. Zamani Saul, that results “are not satisfactory” and that challenges prevalent in the Northern Cape are not unique to the province. We are interested to hear his acknowledgement that the province spends more on education than provinces which outperform us and we look forward to engaging on these remarks further in the budget process.Education, and the quality of outcomes, does require an ongoing effort from a broad school community. Media Enquiries Priscilla Isaacs, MPLDA Northern Cape Spokesperson for Education082 614 7490 Tharina WhittakerResearcher071 251 5558 |
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