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Northern Cape Department of Education set new NSC pass target

Despite the challenges that the Northern Cape department of education encountered in 2012, there was an improvement in terms of the Gr12 pass rate matched to the year 2011, the pass rate in 2011 was 68.76%, in 2012 it escalated to 74.63% with 8 925 learners who wrote and 6 661 passed, translating into a remarkable 5.9% increase compared to the 2011 performance.

 Speaking during her departmental budget speech, Northern Cape Member of Executive Committee for education Gizelda Cjiekella  set a new 2 year target for the National Senior Certificate results, she is targeting that the province achieve an 80% pass rate in the next coming two years, although she admitted that it won’t be an easy target to attain. Cjiekella praised department officials, teachers and parents who worked collectively with the same vision of improving results in the province in the past years.

“The overall pass rate of the Grade 12 class of 2012 has shown what we are able to achieve when we collectively and unreservedly commit to a common task”, Cjiekella said. The NSC results graph have not gone down since 2009 it has been in the improving motion since then until 2012, however the improvement margin was not that immense, Cjiekella expressed her contentment towards the consecutive improvement.

“A closer analysis of the province’s National Senior Certificate (Grade 12) results over a four year period, from 2009 to 2012, indicates that we continue to register successes in both quantity and quality outputs, even though it is not at huge margin; it is an improvement nonetheless”, Cjiekella said.

Apart from just a pass rate improvement there was also an development with learners qualified to enrol for Bachelors programme, the margin increased from  1 741 in 2009 to 2055 in 2012. Pass rate in the most critical subjects Mathematics and Physical Science have also been improving in the province. Mathematics increased from 43.60% in 2009 to 54.9% in 2012, whilst in Physical Science, there was as increase from 33.40% (2009) to 60.1% in 2012. Applauding for the hard work and improved results from Physical Science subject, Cjiekella said this was the best improvement and highest intensification per subject.

As part of collective work, there was an improvement at John Taolo Gaetsewe district which was nationally affirmed one of the 15 underperforming districts nationwide, they overall managed below 60% in the 2011 NSC results in 2012 they staged a dramatic return in circles of passing circles they achieved an overall pass rate of 63.47% compared to the 51.12% attained in 2011