KwaZulu-Natal was the only province to improve its pass rate, while the Eastern Cape stabilised at 50 percent. The rest of the provinces declined.
“Among these initiatives were regular visits to underperforming schools by district, provincial and national officials,” said Mchunu at Durban's Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre.
KwaZulu-Natal improved its pass rate by 3.5 percent from 57.6 percent in 2008 to 61.1 percent in 2009.
“The area of focus was on critical resources required to facilitate and support teaching and learning in schools. We also focused on teaching and learning monitoring and support.”
Of the 132,176 KwaZulu-Natal pupils who wrote the examinations, 80,733 passed and 26,287 qualified to study at university.
Only the Umlazi district's pass rate dropped but it still led the province with a 72.1 percent pass rate. In 2008, it obtained 74.8 percent.
Addressing the media before the official release of the provincial results, education head Dr Cassius Lubisi blamed teachers for poor maths, science and accounting matric results.
“There is clear evidence that teachers are avoiding certain topics in these subjects because they do not know them,” he said.
This was because some teachers were not adequately trained to teach the subjects, he said.
When teaching accounting, for example, teachers would deliberately avoid bookkeeping and management accounting.
In maths, it was known that some teachers avoided trigonometry, he said.
While the department was pleased with the quality of the passes in all the subjects, Lubisi said they would have to address the issue of teachers who avoided certain topics.
He said many pupils struggled with accounting, in which they achieved a 67 percent pass rate.
There was a 45 percent pass rate for maths, he said. “The paper was difficult. This was a higher grade paper… those who were doing standard grade would have failed this paper,” he said, adding that the standard grade option for the subject was done away with.
There was a 39 percent pass in physical science, he said.
The department was pleased that the number of schools with a zero percent pass rate had declined from seven to four. These schools were in the Obenjeni, Empangeni, Vryheid and Umzinyathi districts, he said.
It was also announced that the number of no fee schools in KwaZulu-Natal would increase by 131 this year.
Some 3513 schools - or 59.60 percent - in the province would be declared no fee schools.
Sapa and SAGN
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