Matric results - a cause for concern

LEPHALALE – Even though the Lephalale municipality hosted a stylish event to celebrate top performing schools and learners in the Palala circuit last Friday, the picture painted by the Limpopo Department of Education was anything but positive.
The top performing schools in the circuit were Hoërskool Ellisras in the Ellisras cluster who obtained 60 distinctions during the matric examinations, Motlhajwa School in the Palala North cluster obtained four distinctions and Seoketseng School was the top performer in the Palala South cluster even though they did not manage any distinctions.
More worrying than the low amount of distinctions was the fact that no recognition could be given to the best educators in certain subjects. “Educators in this category have to have at least more than a 60% pass rate to be recognised,” said Annamie van Vuuren, a representative of the Limpopo Department of Education at the event.
No recognition could be given to educators who taught Agricultural Sciences, Economics, History, Life Sciences and Mathematics. The poor performance in these subjects were evident in the fact that there was no school with a 100% pass rate in the circuit and no recognition for the most improved cluster due to the fact that all the clusters performed worse than last year.
Van Vuuren maintained that even though the circuit did not perform as well as the previous years, the overall learner qualities were better. “The new 2015 Promotion and Progression Policy of the department of education resulted in almost 44% of the total number of grade 12 learners being progressed learners.”
It was not all doom and gloom though, with a number of students who showed exceptional performance. Five learners of Hoërskool Ellisras received recognition for their hard work. Alize Hoepfner obtained 87.6%, Sarel Haasbroek 87.3%, Kyla Strydom 85.9%, Maricia van Deventer 83.7% and Hilde van Staden 77.9%. Letupu school's Thapelo Motlokwa obtained 80.1% and Philemon Ndlovu 74.4%. Toki David Baloyi of Majadibodu school obtained 73.29% and Molatelo Moloto of Batlhalerwa school obtained 70.86%.