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SACP Eastern Cape on Matric Results, 6 January 2015 Matric results, a reflection of deep seated inequalities in education The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Eastern Cape welcomes the outcomes of the grade 12 (matric) exams of the class of 2014 as announced. Our province has once more moved from 64.9 % pass rate in 2013 to 65.4 % in 2014, which in our view is a sustained improvement building from that of 2012 and 2013. This is the third year in a row wherein our province is registering improvement. It is in this context that we would like to congratulate the Department of Education and all relevant stakeholders in the Education fraternity who took greater responsibility in ensuring the improvement we are now seeing. We would like to applaud the good leadership shown by MEC Mandla Makupula and the collective he is working with, since he took over in the department there has been a sustained improvement. We trust that he will continue with the good work he is doing. It is our firm view that these matric results once more illustrate a story of a two pronged education system, where education for haves and have-nots is vivid. We should all look unto the matric results beyond numbers and percentages and appreciate that we are speaking of people from different social backgrounds. It should be a common cause that; it is virtually impossible to compare academic performance of a child from a school in a deep rural area with no infrastructure, to a learner from a well-resourced urban school. You cannot compare them because playing fields are not levelled. The current situation deprives the working class children who in majority are black an equal opportunity to success and qualitative education. It is in this context that we are calling for more efforts in improving the schools infrastructure in the poor communities, ensuring the availability of fully functioning libraries, computer laboratories with internet to increase research capacity, enough educators, improved scholar nutrition, well-resourced and functioning laboratories, adequate scholar transport, etc. This will go a long way in ensuring that every child regardless of class or race gets has equivalent and non-discriminatory prospect to success. The working class schools between quintiles 1, 2 and 3 should be developed and highly equipped to meet the standard of the upper ranked schools between quintiles 4 and 5. The issue of classes in our country should not be hidden behind numbers and percentages, as these numbers and percentages when looked close are telling exactly a case of two pronged system. It is our firm view that an issue of matric results is not a beauty contest of statistics and numbers but a sensitive issue of lives of young people with ambitions and dreams and the kind of future society we wish to build, and we should therefore end all inequalities in the education system. Another variable that should not be overlooked in the issue of matric results is the qualitative output of those who sat for the National Senior Certificate Examination consistent with our objectives of building a developmental state. The qualitative output should be our basis for the development of our country as we should work towards nurturing the skills we require for us to implement our developmental policies. The announcement of matric results as it stands does not give a proper account on how as the country, we are building a solid foundation towards the country we envisage. It also does not account for those who have dropped out due to many social challenges. As the SACP we would like to congratulate all the learners who wrote the exams of the year 2014 and in particular those who have passed. You have made us proud, may you have a brighter future, be patriots and use your educational achievements to the development of your country and in particular the communities you are coming from. To all those due to many factors have stumbled, do not despair stand up and dust yourselves; make use of all available opportunities. We urge the communities to support them in this regard and the Department of Education to ensure that they receive all the support in directing them to available options that are provided by the department. We would like to call upon the authorities in the department of education to speedily put the matter of the alleged cheating and copying in some writing centres into closure and bring all those who might have committed this corrupt practice to book. The matter should not be allowed to delay nor taint the future of our children. We call on the institutions of Higher Learning and training to ensure that these students receive all the necessary support in enrolling. Parents must also encourage their children to enrol with the FET Colleges for skills development; if we are to embark on massive skills development it would mean de-stigmatization of our FET Colleges. We, the SACP recommit ourselves to working even harder with the people of the province to ensure that we receive better results in 2015 academic year. Let us all commit in making education a societal matter. Issued by: SACP Eastern Cape. Contact: Siyabonga Mdodi SACP EC Provincial Spokesperson Cell: 083 358 8070 Tel: 040 635 0463 Email: [email protected] -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. 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