South Africa's Grade 9 performance under scrutiny

Limpopo – Dr Godwin Khosa, founding chief executive of the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT), a multi-stakeholder organization that raises funds for education, has warned that the country's education system is contributing to the poor national performance among Grade 9 learners.

Khosa, who is also a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg's Faculty of Education, was speaking at a celebration ceremony held for the top performing schools in the Shamvunga and Groot Letaba circuits in Mphakane village on Thursday.

He told attendees that poor Grade 9 performance is a national problem, not limited to the local area.

Grade 9 students grapple with assessment changes

“Through the research I have done so far, I can tell you that the explanation for this trend is that as learners progress into Grades 9 and 10, they are inadvertently subjected to different assessment methods that they are not used to,” he explained.

He said the problem arose because learners no longer wrote exams in the same way as they did in primary school.

“Instead, they are suddenly faced with external examination papers, which comes as a shock to them as they are used to writing internal examinations,” he said.

“The solution to that problem is to ensure that we use consistent assessment methods from the very beginning,” he said, suggesting that even primary school learners should be exposed to external examinations.

“The second challenge I want to raise is broader among our circuit managers.

“Like taxi drivers, when there is traffic, you see them driving on the side of the road.

“The same applies to our circuit managers. They have been made to believe that to get better results, one needs to focus on matriculation or FET level, and this needs to be challenged,” he alleged.

It is not the individual but the education system that is responsible for this.

He stressed that this is not the problem of individual circuit managers but the problem of the education system of the country.

“If you plant two pawpaw trees and water one less and the other more, they will obviously grow differently,” he said, adding that this also applies to the attention given to high school students.

Local schools excel despite national challenges

Meanwhile, the top performing school between both circuits was Zava High School, which achieved a 100% pass rate with 61.9% graduation passes and 38 diploma passes.

“This strengthens their results; therefore, we declare them number one between the two circuits,” explained Groot Letaba Circuit Manager, AB Maswangani, adding that no school had performed poorly.