Address by Gauteng Education MEC Barbara Creecy at the announcement of the 2010 Gauteng matric results at the Linder Auditorium, Wits Education Campus

6 Jan 2011

Programme director
Fellow MECs
Executive Mayors
The Chairperson of the Education Portfolio Committee in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature
Members of the Provincial Legislature
Councillors
Gauteng Department of Education officials
Representatives of political parties, organised labour, School Governing Body Associations, student and youth formations
Members of the faith based community
Principals, educators, parents, learners, honoured guests, comrades and friends

It gives me great pleasure to stand before you to announce the 2010 National Senior Certificate results. The matric class of 2010 has indeed made us proud. The pass rate in Gauteng is 78.6%, up from 71.8% in 2009, a 6.8% rise. This means that we are only 1.4% short of our 2014 target of an 80% pass rate. And, for the first time ever, Gauteng is the top performing province in the whole country. We do indeed have a great deal to celebrate today.

It is a priority of this government to improve on the quality of basic education. We are therefore happy that the results we are announcing today indicate that we are also on track to achieving this important objective. Bachelor passes have increased to 33.9% in 2010, an improvement on the 29.3% recorded in 2009. Of those who actually passed matric, 43% obtained a bachelors pass.

Six out of our 15 districts achieved a pass rate of over 80%. Our best performing districts are Tshwane North, Tshwane West, Ekurhuleni North, Tshwane South and Sedibeng East.

We want to extend our heartfelt congratulations to Alexander Gerhard Johannes from Pretoria Boys High, our top performing learner in the province who has achieved nine distinctions and a total point score of 1720. We also congratulate Pieter Daniel Grobler from Protea School , an LSEN school, who obtained three distinctions and a point score of 1287 - our best performing LSEN learner in the province.

Congratulations are also due to our top performing learners from our Senior Secondary School Improvement programme: Skhumbuzo Selby Nkutha from Rondebult Secondary School obtained six distinctions and a point score of 1625; Pamela Mmashadi Mainama from Phahame Secondary School obtained 6 distinctions and a point score of 1585; and Neo Modimokwane from Mosupatsela Secondary School with 4 distinctions and a point score of 1602.

Congratulations also to the 20 learners, who obtained 100% in Maths and 13 learners with full marks in Physical Science all of whom are present here today. During 2010 we implemented our revised Maths Science, and Technology Strategy. These impressive results indicate that this strategy is indeed beginning to bear fruit. We are particularly excited about the significant numbers of African learners who have achieved full marks in these important gateway learning areas.

Congratulations must also go to learners, parents, principals and staff in the top 5 best performing schools in the province namely Hoërskool Waterkloof, Hoërskool Menlopark, Hoërskool Garsfontein, Hoërskool Eldoraigne, and Afrikaanse Hoer Meisieskool. Congratulations go also to our best performing LSEN schools namely Protea School , Prestasie Skool, and Filadelfia.

Last year in January, the GDE developed a special programme, the Secondary School Improvement Programme (SSIP), for 276 high schools which achieved less than 70% pass rate in 2009. This programme involved extra classes on Saturdays starting from the second term in April, during the World Cup, and during the September holidays. The classes were expanded into a catch-up and exam preparation programme in the period after the strike.

In the main, classes focused on six learning areas which have historically had the lowest pass rate in the province namely maths, maths literacy, physical science, life sciences, accounting, and English first additional language.

Of these schools, 216 significantly improved their results. Special congratulation goes to the top 5 schools from the SSIP programme namely, Inqayizivele Secondary which achieved a pass rate of 94.8%, Lethukuthula Secondary with 88%, Mosupatsela Secondary with 85%, Zitikeni Secondary obtained 81%; and Lesiba Secondary obtained a pass rate of 75%.

A special word of encouragement and congratulations goes to Beverly Hills Secondary School which managed to improve results by 55.1% to 86.7%. This is our most improved school in the province.

Provincial pass rates in Maths, Maths Literacy, Physical Science, Life Sciences, Accounting and English First Additional Language, all subjects targeted for additional classes in the SSIP programme have improved this year.

We are also very proud to announce that we achieved a total of 36 548 distinctions this year. The largest numbers of distinctions are in those subjects that have been dubbed gateway learning areas and were included in the SSIP programme. We achieved 2598 distinctions in Maths, 3513 in Maths Literacy, 1580 in Physical Science, 1284 in Accountancy, 1668 in Life Sciences and 716 in English First Additional Language.

Our overall performance is particularly gratifying considering the long break during the World Cup, and the disruption to learning and teaching during the public sector strike.

Credit for this achievement must first and foremost go to our 2010 learners who surmounted great challenges to achieve these excellent results. To them we say you took responsibility for your own learning and put your studies first.

You consistently attended Saturday classes, gave up your holidays during the World Cup, responded to our call to set up study groups during the public sector strike and participated consistently in the catch-up programme in September. Your conscientious commitment to your own learning has paid off. We salute each and every one of you!

As a department we are committed to assisting learners to make the transition from the world of schooling to the world of further and higher education. To this end we are pleased to announce today that all our top performing learners will be offered a Gauteng Government Bursary to a university of their choice. We are also awarding bursaries to the two top performing learners in all 276 high schools participating in the SSIP programme. And of course this can only happen in Gauteng because after all "it starts here!"

Today, our hearts also go out to those young people who have not passed matric or who are unhappy with their results. We want to say to you that hard as this disappointment is, this is not the end of the world. There are still opportunities to write supplementary examinations in February or to re-sit the examinations at the end of this year. We will be running extra classes for those learners writing supplementary examinations in February. Abet (Adult Education and Training) centres will also from this year offer support to NCS learners who want to re-write their matric exams.

When we achieve results such as these, it is important to thank the many parents, educators, principals and officials who stood by learners through thick and thin. Your dedication and commitment to our learners went beyond the call of duty and in no small way accounts for this success.

Lead SA, media partners, including Primedia through their cinema study initiative, also assisted us during difficult times to support our learners. I urge our partners and indeed all of society to continue with their vigilance and support to future matriculants.

I wish to thank the unwavering support of the Gauteng Premier Mrs Nomvula Mokonyane and the Executive Council who throughout 2010 made education their number one priority, visited schools, gave hours of moral support, and raised money to fix infrastructure and provided resources. Special appreciation also goes to the Minister of Basic Education, Mrs Angie Motshekga for her unwavering advice and support during difficult times.

I must thank Prem Govender and his team for once again delivering a world class examination. We also wish to commend our chief invigilators as well as our markers and chief markers for an excellent task performed during the NSC Examination of 2010. Registration processes were carried out meticulously and conscientiously, ensuring that there were minimum errors. Our markers and chief markers must be commended for their vigilance during the marking sessions.

It would be remiss of me if I did not pay tribute today to the senior management team of the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) led by the Head of Department Mr Boy Ngobeni and the Chief of Operations Mr Len Davids. These men and women made GDE their number one priority throughout 2010 at great personal cost and we all owe them a great debt of gratitude.

As we celebrate this important milestone in education reform in our province today, we remain humbled and deeply aware of the broader systemic challenges which continue to bedevil our education system. Poor infrastructure; school safety; low levels of achievement in literacy and numeracy in primary schools; curriculum management and educator knowledge of curriculum content are some of the significant factors that must be addressed if we are to sustain improvements to our matric pass rate.

This year we will tackle these challenges with renewed energy and commitment. The Senior Secondary School Improvement Programme will commence its assistance to this year's grade 12s from January. The early start is intended to assist these learners catch up work they missed during grade 11 as a result of the public sector strike.

From Monday 6500 foundation phase educators from our 792 under performing primary schools will begin training to assist them to improve language and literacy levels in our foundation phase. On Sunday we will launch our parental and family support booklet which is intended to begin the process of more effectively helping families to support school going children.

In January 2008 President Jacob Zuma called on South Africans to make Education a societal priority. This year's matric results are a tribute to the many in civil society, in faith based communities, in the private sector as well as hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens who have heeded the Presidents call and made education their number one priority.

Our victory today is an important step forward on the long road towards achieving quality basic education for all learners and for the African child in particular. Let us continue to put our collective shoulders to the wheel of educational change. Today more than ever before I know that working together we can and will do more to make 2011 and even better year for education!

I thank you.

Statement issued by the Gauteng Department of Education, January 6 2011

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