Letter: ‘Walkers’ bring down pass rate

Matric exam results MUCH has been said about the poor senior certificate examination results in the Port Elizabeth northern areas and townships schools. A crucial factor that makes it incorrect and unfair to compare last year’s results to those of previous years has not received enough emphasis in the press. This factor is the inclusion of the “Johnny Walkers” in the statistics in last year’s results. This name is given by some northern area and township schools to those candidates who the national Education Department insisted should “walk” to Grade 12 at the start of last year despite not having qualified to do so. A policy that allows automatic progression has been in existence for many years, but has not always been strictly enforced for Grade 12. Schooling is divided into four three-year phases and no pupil should spend more than four years in a phase. In theory, after 15 years at school a pupil can progress to Grade 12 and qualify to write the senior certificate examinations without ever having passed a grade. Last year’s National Senior Certificate Examination Schools Perfomance (sic) Report is available online. (This spelling error and the melding of the Grahamstown and Graaff-Reinet districts into one does not fill one with confidence about its accuracy.) It provides the number writing, the number passing and the percentage pass rate for each school per district for 2013 to last year. Last year’s results contain an extra column containing the number of “progressed” pupils – the official term for the “Johnny Walkers”. Not only were many of these pupils pushed into Grade 12 at the last minute by the department, but most of them were not particularly interested in passing the senior certificate. They helped to swell the numbers per class to unmanageable numbers in many cases and many were a disruption to those who were trying to learn. Where there were fairly large numbers of “progressed” pupils (at most of the northern areas or township schools), this was a major problem for the schools and the Grade 12 teachers. Former Model C and independent schools were included in this process, but the numbers at most of them were in single figures and manageable as a few pupils could receive extra attention. Even some schools with 100% pass rates had a couple “Johnny Walkers” who obviously did pass.

Let us look at the impact of the progression on one school from the northern areas and one township school. The first northern areas school listed alphabetically in the Port Elizabeth district had pass rates of: 2013 – 70% of 60 candidates; 2014 – 80.2% of 96 candidates and last year – 65.4% of 130 candidates. However, the school had 50 progressed pupils last year, which means only 80 pupils passed Grade 11. Some 85 pupils passed last year, which shows that the school, to its credit, got five pupils who probably had not passed Grade 11 through Grade 12. This gives the school a 100% pass rate. It can be argued that a few borderline pupils should have been given the chance to proceed to Grade 12 – but not the full 50 failures. The first township school alphabetically paints a similar picture with pass rates over the past three years of 54.9%, 52.1% and 42%. Some 27 of its 88 candidates last year had “progressed” and without them the pass rate would have been nearly 73%. Not all schools will have had the same sort of result, but the trend in all the schools indicates these results are not unusual. Of 2 250 candidates in the northern areas schools, 490 had progressed and the pass rates with and without these progressed pupils were 67.87% and 86.76%. Township schools had 4 322 candidates (853 progressed) and the pass rates were 48.31% and 60.19%. Many schools deserve a pat on the back for what they achieved in a year when they were probably given no resources or support for what was imposed on them. They now have to face the same problem this year. A system needs to be devised whereby some standard is set for those who are allowed to progress to Grade 12 and these need to be made clear to the Grade 11 pupils. Allowing all who qualify to progress under the present system is creating extra-large classes and not allowing only those determined to succeed into Grade 12. Teachers in these schools can work towards higher quality passes and not have to struggle with dead wood that will not work.