The headline National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination results, as published by the Department of Basic Education in early January, include candidates from both public and independent schools.

Many independent school pupils do write the Independent Examination Board's (IEB) examinations, but in 2014 two-and-a-half times as many sat as candidates for the government matric. These pupils come from schools ranging from low-fee establishments to some of the most elite private schools in the country (such as Bishops in Cape Town).

Although the numbers are relatively small the inclusion of independent school candidates in the overall NSC examination results does get in the way of a precise assessment of the performance of government schools. It also prevents a comparison of the relative performance of the public and independent school sectors.

What then was the matric pass rate for 2014 for public schools, and how does this compare with the performance of independent school sector?

In 2014 506 226 full-time candidates in public schools wrote the 2014 NSC examinations. The national pass rate was 75,4% with the bachelors pass rate 27,6%.

Table 1: Candidates from public schools who wrote the 2014 NSC examinations

By contrast, 26 634 of full-time candidates from independent schools wrote the government matric last year, 5,3% of the total. By far the greatest number of these candidates were from Gauteng (11 642), followed by KZN (3 385), Limpopo (3 182), the Eastern Cape (2 478) and the Western Cape (2 353).

In most provinces candidates from independent schools outperformed their public school counterparts in the government matric: Nationally, the pass rate of 82,7% was 7,3 percentage points higher, and the bachelors pass rate of 41,5% was 13,9 percentage points higher. See Table 2. (If one includes the IEB results 86,9% of all independent school candidates passed matric in 2014, with 53,3% receiving bachelors passes.)

Table 2: Candidates from independent schools who wrote the 2014 NSC examinations

Including independent school candidates in the overall NSC examination results has a relatively minor effect on the overall published pass rate however - increasing it by 0,4 percentage points and the bachelors pass rate by 0,7 percentage points.

More importantly however, differentiating between pupils in independent schools and ordinary public schools does allow for a much more precise calculation of the "real matric pass rate" for government schools - the percentage of pupils in Grade 10 in 2012 who actually proceeded to go on to write and pass the 2014 examinations. (The NSC examination figures for 2014 in this earlier analysis here included candidates from independent schools.)

Only 47.5% of pupils in ordinary public schools in Grade 10 in 2012 went on to write the 2014 matric. 35.8% of this cohort passed, and 13,1% received a bachelors pass. The Western Cape was by far the best performing province on this measure, with 50,6% of the 2012 cohort in ordinary public schools passing the 2014 matric; followed by Gauteng (42,1%), Mpumalanga (37,1%), KZN (36,5%) and the Free State (36,4%).

Nationally, 13,1% of pupils in Grade 10 in ordinary public schools in 2012 went on to receive bachelors passes in 2014. Again the Western Cape dramatically outperformed the other provinces with 23.3% of this cohort receiving bachelors passes, followed by 18% in Gauteng, 13,3% in the Free State and 13,1% in KZN. Fewer than 1 in 11 Grade 10 pupils in 2012 in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo went on to receive a bachelors pass in 2014. See Table 3.

Table 3: Percentage of Grade 10 pupils in ordinary public schools who wrote the NSC matric (by province and nationally) in 2014

If one controls for the drop-out rate it is quite evident that independent schools are dramatically outperforming public schools. 94,9% of Grade 10 pupils in independent schools in 2012 went on to write either the IEB or NSC examinations in 2014, 82,5% passed, and 50,6% received bachelors passes. See table 4.

Table 4: Real matric pass rate for public schools (NSC) and independent schools (IEB and NSC) 2014:

The effect of this is that while 3,5% of Grade 10 pupils in 2012 were in independent schools, 6,7% of candidates who wrote either the NSC or IEB matric were from these schools, as were 7,6% of those who passed, and 12,1% of those who received bachelors passes.

One of the main public policy questions facing South Africa is whether significant privatisation of the school sector would help cut the gordian knot of our dysfunctional education system for the poor. Given that the independent school sector currently includes a high number of elite private schools the analysis above does not fully answer that question.

However, it is important that any future analysis of the matric performance of low-fee private schools, serving poor and working class communities, must look at the "real matric pass rate" for these schools rather than simply the overall pass rate. For, as this and other analyses have noted a high drop out rate after Grade 10 is significantly disguising the underperformance of government schools in the NSC examinations. 

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