Matric Results: Pass rate declines from 65% to 62.5%

I wonder what the 200 000 matrics that failed end up becoming, or doing. That's besides the 40% of pupils (almost half the potential number) who drop out before matric. If South Africa wants to emerge as a country oif any significance, we need to find a way to get our population educated. This - a better educated population - will do a great deal to ameliorate the crime and AIDS situation. But we seem to be a long road away.

A culture of education rests with parents who encourage educational standards and excellence. If dad or mom never passed matric I reckon its easy to make excuses to drop out.

clipped from www.sowetan.co.za The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union expressed its concern that the matric pass rate had dropped from 65 percent last year to 62.5 percent this year. "We... have to understand and address the factors which lead to drop out and failure," Sadtu president Thobile Ntola said in a statement. "Our sense is that issues of historical disadvantage and poverty associated with race, class and the rural-urban divide, and uneven support and poor management, especially in some districts and provinces are crucial here, and we would expect the Department of Education to deepen its analysis in this respect," he said. Pointing out that more than 40 percent of pupils never even reached matric, Sadtu asked who made up this group, whether they joined the ranks of the unemployed and what could be done to turn around the situation.