Certain programmes underway will help government reach the target.
New education MEC Bonakele Majuba aims to achieve over 80% in this year’s matric Mpumalanga pass rate, his department said in a statement.
Interventions such as the 10-day winter classes, where matric pupils will be at school during the June school vacation, are one of the weapons Majuba aims to use in improving the pass rate in the province.
Last year Mpumalanga got an overall matric pass rate of 79%, an increase from the 74% it got in 2017. Now Majuba aims to put this at 82%.
An amount of R17 million has been set aside to improve learner performances during winter.
Majuba’s winter classes are compulsory for all identified schools that got less than 70% in last year’s matric results.
63 winter classes centres have been established across the province. They will cover 12 759 matric pupils province-wide.
“The classes will focus on identified challenging content and cover the highly enrolled subjects, like maths, physics, life science, economics, accounting, business, geography, history and English 1st language,” departmental spokesman Jasper Zwane said.
He said the provincial department has now provided the learners with the necessary resources, like previous question papers, food and transport to those who live far to not get disturbed while they attend the winter classes.
Zwane said learners will write tests when the classes close on 1 July 2019 as part of assessing the impact of the winter classes.
Learners were encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity and even those schools that are not listed as winter class centres should also do similar programmes to enhance their chances of achieving a high pass rate.
Majuba said: “As a department we have set ourselves a target of 82% in the 2019 grade 12 pass rate and these winter classes and other related interventions give us a reasonable belief that we will be able to reach that target”.
(edited by MLM)
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