Every year we have our national jamboree and the media focuses on the schooling system for 2 weeks before it gets back to its usual diet of politics, corruption, celebrities and soapies. Looking through the DBE’s reports on the matric exam (all here) I am really impressed with what they manage to achieve in such a short space of time! I do want to write an article or two on Matric 2018 but for now here are some of my thoughts…
(1) STATISTICS: The matric pass rate seen in isolation is misleading. Remember that the widely-reported matric pass rate is just the number of full-time matrics passing divided by the number of full-time matrics writing (400,761 / 512,700 = 78%). However if we look at the cohort in Grade 1 there were about 1 million learners (according to the Education Statistics at a Glance 2007). [Note there are some repeaters in here. There are probably about 925,000 learners in this cohort – see Gustafsson, 2018]. So the throughput matric pass rate from Grade 1 is around 40-43%.
(2) GENDER: For every 100 girls in matric there are only 82 boys. There are lots of reasons for this (see Van Broekhuizen & Spaull, 2017), but basically girls do better than boys at most school subjects and drop out at lower rates.
(3) SPECIAL NEEDS: Only 12% of the SA population live in WC but 64% of Special Needs matric candidates come from WC. Every year when I read through the #Matric2018 reports I’m shocked by the stats on Learners with Special Needs. If you’re a parent with a Special Needs child you basically want to be in the Western Cape.
(4) PROGRESS: There has been clear progress in a number of indicators over the last 10 years. Improvements in TIMSS, as well as increases in the numbers of Bachelor passes and passes in maths and science.
Nic Spaull 
Nic
Hope you have a good new year. Thank you again for some insightful ideas and information about the results.
I would just like to know if I want to refer to your information on this email, how do I refer to it? I cannot remember if you have a web page in which the same information will be available then it will be easy to refer to it.
Prof Jan Heystek
Research Director / Navorsingsdirekteur
Faculty of Education / Fakulteit Opvoedkunde
Research niche area: Educational Leadership (Edu-Lead)
Navorsings-nisarea: Opvoedkundige Leierskap (Edu-Lead)
Tel: 018 299 4762
http://www.nwu.ac.za
http://education.nwu.ac.za/edu-lead
Vrywaringsklousule / Disclaimer: http://www.nwu.ac.za/it/gov-man/disclaimer.html
>>> Nic Spaull 2019/01/04 12:18 PM >>>
Nic Spaull posted: “Every year we have our national jamboree and the media focuses on the schooling system for 2 weeks before it gets back to its usual diet of politics, corruption, celebrities and soapies. Looking through the DBE’s reports on the matric exam (all here) I am”
As always Nic terrific piece.
Happy New Year
From: Nic Spaull
Reply-To: Nic Spaull
Date: Friday, 4 January 2019 at 05:19
To: Christine Downton
Subject: [New post] Some thoughts on #Matric2018
Nic Spaull posted: “Every year we have our national jamboree and the media focuses on the schooling system for 2 weeks before it gets back to its usual diet of politics, corruption, celebrities and soapies. Looking through the DBE’s reports on the matric exam (all here) I am”