A 90% pass rate is expected from this year’s Gauteng Grade 12 pupils. That’s according to Panyaza Lesufi, Gauteng MEC for Education, speaking about the province’s readiness for the upcoming final examinations.

“We’re not saying this because we purely want to put pressure on our children,” said Lesufi.

Lesufi’s target comes as no surprise considering the province reclaimed its top-performing province seat for the 2018 results with an 87.9% pass rate. Eight of the 10 best performing districts were from Gauteng and only nine pupils passed with the minimum 30% required.

“If we achieve 90%, it basically means out of every 10 matriculants, nine have passed. We really believe it is a huge contribution to the elimination of unemployment and our skills space,” he added.

The education MEC was addressing members of the media during a briefing convened by the department to address the province’s readiness for the National Senior Certificate (NSC) final examinations.

The department has registered 111,775 full-time learners and 41,559 part-timers for this year’s NSC exams, an increase from last year’s 107,168 pupils combined. The exams will be written across 1,007 centres in 15 districts – 667 are public ordinary schools, 235 independent schools, 87 adult and education training and 11 Correctional Services centres.

Education quality assurance body, Umalusi, highlighted a few concerns regarding exam readiness in some provinces, and Gauteng made the list of provinces with marker shortages.

However, the department says it has applied some of the recommendations made by Umalusi after the issue was flagged. According to the department’s deputy director-general, Alison Bengston, the department will institute block marking to equally distribute markers for all subjects.

Also discussed during the briefing was risk centres – these are centres known to have a track record of disappearing exam sheets, group cheating, and exam paper leaks. Lesufi said the majority of these risk centres are administered by independent bodies, and they have had to take over the wheel of some.

Additionally, Lesufi announced that matric pupils from Eldorado Park Secondary School will be moved to a camp to catch up on curriculum time lost after three months of no schooling.

This comes after a battle between the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) and the school’s governing body (SGB) over the removal of seven educators by community members. Fourteen more teachers downed their tools in solidarity with those removed and the school has since been functioning with a shortfall of educators.

“On Friday, I was chairing a mediation team. Unfortunately, that mediation collapsed, and we reached a deadlock because Sadtu has filed a strike action to remove their members across Soweto Central,” Lesufi said.

“So, on that basis, we didn’t want to take a risk, we’ve decided those children be removed immediately from that school while this impasse is still on.”

The catch-up camp will run from Monday 14 October until Friday and cover key topics that have not been taught or sufficiently covered, and exam preparation. DM