Calling it a “crisis of governance and accountability”‚ the Democratic Alliance (DA) on Thursday called for “an independent inquiry into the matric results‚ given the precipitous drop in the performance of some provinces”.
The party’s basic education spokesperson‚ Gavin Davis‚ said the probe should “investigate what is going wrong in these provincial departments‚ and how these provinces can be fixed”.
This follows‚ Davis said‚ Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga’s acknowledgment that the “declining pass rate in the populous provinces of the Eastern Cape‚ KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo dragged the national pass rate down”.
He added that such an inquiry was provided for by The National Education Policy Act: “”The Minister shall direct that the standards of education provision‚ delivery and performance throughout the Republic be monitored and evaluated by the Department annually or at other specified intervals‚ with the object of assessing progress in complying with the provisions of the Constitution and with national education policy…”
The three provinces returned decreases in the pass rate: the Eastern Cape’s 56.8% was down by 8.6% from 2014‚ KwaZulu-Natal’s 60.7% down by 9%‚ and Limpopo’s 65.9% down by 7%.
Those three provinces‚ said Davis also “had more poor performing schools than anywhere else”‚ and “fewer high performing schools than other provinces”.
“The fact is that a poor child attending school in one of these provinces is less likely to overcome poverty and achieve their full potential‚” said Davis.
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