Johannesburg - The Department of Education in the North West says it is ready for the start of the Matric exams on Monday.
MEC for Education in the province Mmaphefo Matsemela said she was confident that they would get a 80% pass rate.
“As the province, we really gave much preparation to the class of 2022. I have no doubt that this class will give us a target of 85% pass rate, with 39% bachelor pass. This we know is doable because we capacitated our learners well enough.
“Our dedicated teachers have spent enough time to teach learners in class, administer study camps during school breaks, weekend classes in some instances, radio lessons as well our telephonic teacher-learner programme Dial-A-Tutor," said Matsemela.
The department said there were 48 808 candidates who were registered to sit for the exams, of which 44 605 are full-time and 4 203 are part-time. “Candidates will write in 444 centres inclusive of 21 independent schools and four centres for inmates and special needs learners," it said.
The department has been hard at work in the run-up to the exams as they conducted extra classes in the last few weeks.
“Both winter and spring vacation camps focused on revision to further close learning gaps and targeted 68% of learners from all vulnerable schools (under performing, semi-performance, schools showing declining performance, new grade 12 learners) and learners at risk.
“School Based Assessment was provincially conducted in July and September for selected subjects to ensure compliance with stipulations," said the department.
Matsemela added that during the spring break, they held spring camps where pupils took the last lap to bridge the content gap with other learners and our esteemed teachers were helpful.
“All schools participated in the Ngwana sejo o a tlhakanelwa revision programme that provided practice for learners on past question papers, revised on the frequently asked questions, point to areas where learners are able to collect easy marks and identification of all low order questions in all the high weighted content and to familiarise learners with the structure of the question papers and response to assessment instructions (where the structure has changed use exemplars)," she said.
It said the distribution of exam papers would be secured by appointed security personnel.
“Strong room managers were trained from October 11 to 14, and vetting of all officials involved in exams processes was done by the State Security Agency.
“School invigilators and chief invigilators were trained by October 12, and training of 512 monitors was from Monday 24 October and will be completed by October 28.
“Marker selection process was done during the first semester, and marking will start from December 7 to 22 in 22 marking centres across the province," it stated.
Matsemela will monitor the first day of the matric examinations at three schools in the province when they get underway on Monday.
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