
FILE PHOTO: DA leader John Steenhuisen addressing the Cape Town Press Club on “The path to building a new majority”. PICTURE: The South African
JOHANNESBURG: 336,364 learners that would have been part of the class of 2022 were not, bringing the ‘real’ pass rate down significantly to 54.6%.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) says it believes that the real matric pass rate is 54.6% and not the 80.1% that the Minister of Basic Education, Ms Angie Motshekga has announced.
The party says its calculation is based on the number of learners who dropped out and did not make it to matric. It says 31.8% of learners dropped out before reaching matric.
However, the DA has congratulated those in the class of 2022 who passed their matric examinations despite challenges in the past three years including the pandemic, floods and rolling blackouts.
The party has also thanked teachers for going the extra mile during this difficult period.
While the Department of Basic Education is celebrating the official 2022 matric pass rate of 80.1%, critics of the government’s methodology in determining the number are pushing what they call a more realistic figure.
The DBE announced the matric pass rate on Thursday evening (19 January), noting that 922,034 matrics registered to take the exams – of these 87% (725,146) were full-time candidates.
However, the department’s official pass rate does not factor in South Africa’s worryingly high drop-out rate, with the opposition party the DA reporting that the dropout rate for the class of 2022 was 31.8%.
In other words, 336,364 learners that would have been part of the class of 2022 were not, bringing the ‘real’ pass rate down significantly to 54.6%.
“Every year, the DA calculates the real matric pass rate by bringing into account the number of learners that dropped out and never made it to matric. Some learners opt out of schooling at the end of grade 9 to pursue their education through technical and vocational education and training (TVET), but a large number simply stop their education entirely,” the DA said.
“To bring the TVET learners into account the DA calculates the real matric pass rate from the grade 10 cohort that ought to complete matric.”
The ‘real’ 2022 matric pass rate is only 54.6%, and is an increase from 2021’s 50.4%, but remains very concerning, the party said.