#Matric2016: DA Requests Investigation into ‘Culling’ of Students

The Democratic Alliance (DA) claims that a close analysis of the 2016 matric results reveals a VERY high ‘drop-out rate’, leading to speculation that some students may have been ‘culled’ to inflate the matric pass rate.

According to the Department of Basic Education’s figures, 1 100 877 learners enrolled for Grade 10 in 2014, but only 610 178 enrolled for Grade 12 in 2016.

This means that 44,6% of learners either dropped out of the system altogether or remain stuck in Grade 10 and 11, says Gavin Davis, Shadow Minister of Education.

In a statement the DA presented a table with each provinces ‘drop-out rate’. The highest are in the Northern Cape (54,4%), North West (52,7%) and the Free State (51,6%).

Davis says: “It is possible to see from these figures how a fixation on the pass rate can mask the actual performance of the education system. This is because the pass rate is expressed as a percentage of the learners who wrote, and doesn’t take into consideration the learners who didn’t make it to matric.

“But we need to remember that it is possible for a school, district or province to push up their pass rate simply by ensuring that fewer weaker learners write the matric exams.”

From the figures it can be seen, for example, that the Free State actually was not the best performing province. Of the 55 293 learners that enrolled in Grade 10, only 23 629 passed matric in 2016… leaving a ‘real pass rate’ of 42,7%.

Davis has written to Minister Angie Motshekga to request an investigation into the high ‘drop-out’ rate, and specifically whether it is the result of learners being ‘culled’ by schools under pressure from districts and provincial education departments.

The notion that learners may have been ‘culled’ in order to manipulate or ‘game’ the pass rate has been raised numerous times in the past.

Since the announcement of the matric results, there have been several criticisms of the South African education system, including an article by Jonathan Jansen in Times Live yesterday in which, while addressing matric students, he said: “Passing Grade 12 in South Africa is actually quite easy, and it means very little. The standards are low and the marks are adjusted upwards for most subjects…”

Jansen said the exams are rigged to make the weakest pupils pass, rather than the brightest excel, and said: “the exams are designed to compensate for the dysfunction in most of our schools because the politicians are too scared to confront those who hold hostage the potential of all our pupils.”