Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga says the 18 751 progressed learners who passed the 2017 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations now have a golden opportunity to access either university or a TVET college.
The learner progression policy encourages provinces to progress or condone over-aged learners who have repeated Grade 11 more than once and give them extra support to sit for the NSC examinations or allow them to modularise their examinations.
“In the latter case, progressed learners wrote part of the 2017 NSC examinations in November 2017, and the rest could be written in June 2018,” said the Minister, during the release of the 2017 matric results on Thursday.
In 2017 the department had the second largest number of progressed learners, since the policy was promulgated in 2013.
“An analysis of the raw data on progressed learners paints an extremely interesting picture, particularly for this year. For the Class of 2017, we had 107 430 registered progressed learners.”
A total of 34 011 progressed learners wrote the requisite seven subjects during the 2017 NSC examinations. The rest of the learners are modularising their examinations.
Of the progressed learners who wrote the 2017 NSC examinations, 18 751 passed; which represents 55.1% of all progressed learners, and 4.7% of all learners, who passed the 2017 NSC examinations.
A total of 5.6% achieved Bachelor passes; 25.2% achieved Diploma passes; 24.3% achieved Higher Certificate passes; and 10 achieved NSC passes.
A total of 1 801 distinctions were attained, including distinctions in critical subjects, such as Accounting, Business Studies, Economics, Mathematics and Physical Science.
“The support provided to progressed learners by provinces is important, particularly for learners who come from poorer communities. You know that affluent communities arrange extra tuition for their children at extra costs. Provinces, on the other hand, go out of their way to provide progressed learners with extra support; and these provinces do without any additional budget,” said the Minister.
She thanked all the provinces, especially Gauteng, Free State, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal, for the extra support and pointed interventions they gave to these learners.
“If these provinces did not do this, some of the progressed young people, could have fallen through the cracks of the system, due to continuous repetition and ultimate drop-out from the system,” Minister Motshekga said.
The Second Chance programme and the learner progression policy were introduced to redress the inequalities of the past, by creating a conduit through which young people could be afforded a second chance in life, rather than adding to the large number of young people who are not in education, are unemployed and not in any form of training.
These programmes were intended to improve the access and retention of learners in the system, and improve the internal efficiency of the system. – SAnews.gov.za
