Matric pass rate not a reflection of true state of education system - EE

CAPE TOWN - As the class of 2023 celebrates the end of their schooling career, lobby group, Equal Education, said the 83% matric pass rate was not a reflection of the true state of the country’s education system. 

It said while matriculants should be celebrated for having overcome many adversities including a pandemic, load shedding and inclement weather, the quality of their passes exposed fault lines in the system.

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Equal Education’s Stacey Jacobs said that while their analysis showed that there had been an increase in the number of learners concluding their schooling across all provinces, the education department was still struggling to reduce the number of dropouts. 

"Equal Education also calls for education departments to invest in strengthening foundation phase learning and provide proactive retention support to all learners throughout their schooling to reduce drop out and for national and provincial treasuries to increase funding to basic education to improve service delivery." 

Equal Education said the infrastructure at schools impacted both learner experience and academic performance. 

Jacobs said this needed to be brought up to par to prepare learners adequately for the world of work. 

"Equal Education reiterates its calls for education departments to fulfill their requirements in the norms and standards for public school infrastructure and urgently fix our schools to create conducive teaching and learning environments."