The Eastern Cape has moved up from the bottom of the matric results class and now stands in 7th place among the nine provinces, ahead of Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
The Eastern Cape has moved up from the bottom of the matric results class and now stands in 7th place among the nine provinces, ahead of Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
This is according to Eastern Cape Education MEC Mandla Makupula in his speech after the release of the results of the New Curriculum Statement (NCS) Grade 12 exams of 2010 yesterday.
A total of 68 123 full-time candidates enrolled for the National Senior Certificate in 2010 and 64090 wrote the exams – 58.3% of whom passed. This was an increase of 7.3% over the 51% achieved in 2009. The target set for 2010 had been 60%, Makupula said.
While the province had fallen slightly short, the increase in performance was "substantial and cause for celebration". Makupula said 2010 had been a challenging and demanding year that included infrastructure backlogs, the filling of critical posts at district and school level, and delivering key aspects of support, such as the school nutrition and scholar transport programmes.
According to Makupula, the number of candidates qualifying for admission to a Bachelor Degree increased from 13.9% in 2009 to 15.9%. Diploma course qualifying scores increased from 20.4% to 23.8%. There were high performances in home languages, such as IsiXhosa, with a 99.7% pass rate, English with a 92.6% pass and Afrikaans with a 95.9% pass rate.
There was a significant improvement of 14.62% in Physical Science, where the pass rate was 43.3%, compared to last year's 28.6%.
A continuous challenge is the English First Additional Language, in which the pass rate increased by a mere 0.4%. In Mathematics the pass rate decreased by 0.19% in 2010, with a pass rate of 37.3%, while Maths Literacy had a 80% pass – an improvement of 8.67%. An extra course, Mathematics Paper 3, was written by only 440 candidates, but moved up to 68.9 %, an improvement of 16.95%.
The best performing district in the province for 2010 is Cradock, where 747 candidates obtained a pass rate of 75.4% – an improvement of 7.4%. The poorest performances, recorded by Fort Beaufort, were at 44.01 %. Makupula slated Port Elizabeth, saying the city, which was "supposed to be the flagship of the Eastern Cape but declines every year", had dropped by 1% in its pass rate.
Among the top Grahamstown schools was Victoria Girls' High School, which once again attained a 100% pass rate from its 67 pupils. Principal Madeleine Schoeman said the school had a 90% of the pupils had scored high enough for university entry, five had achieved A-aggregates, and 40% of the science pupils had received A-symbols.
"The staff and the girls worked well," she said. PJ Olivier also received a 100% pass rate for the 10th successive year. Of the school's 21 matrics, 13 passed with a bachelor's degree exemption, nine with diploma exemption and two pupils received the Higher Certificate.
Sune Pretorius was the top student, with an average of 85%, including five distinctions and two B-symbols. Pretorius also achieved 92% for Mathematics Paper 3. De Wet Cronje gained an average of 79.2%, with three distinctions. “His 90% in mathematics is an outstanding achievement and the highest mark for mathematics in my 32 years in teaching,” said PJ principal Piet Snyders.
Graeme College principal, Peter Reed said he was happy with the school's results as matrics achieved a 98% pass rate from its 59 pupils and obtained a 75% bachelor's degree pass.
