Once again the Eastern Cape has stumbled lazily (in total contrast to performed) to the lowest echelons of the provincial matric pass rates.
Against a background of six out of nine provinces improving their matric pass rates the Eastern Cape joins KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape in the Dunce Class of 2011.
The nine provinces fared as follows:
- Eastern Cape: 58.1% – the lowest pass rate and down from 58.3% in 2010
- KwaZulu-Natal: 68.1% – down from 70.7% in 2010
- Northern Cape: 68.8% – down from 72.3% achieved in 2010
- Limpopo: 63.9% – up from 57.9% and an improvement of 6.0%
- Mpumalanga: 64.8% – up from 56.8%, representing the largest improvement by a province of 8%
- The Free State: 75.7% – up from 70.7%, an improvement of 5.0%
- The North West: 77.8% – up from 75.7%, and improvement of 2.1%
- Gauteng: 81.1% – up from 78.6% in 2010, an improvement of 2.5%
- The Western Cape: 82.9% – the highest pass rate up from 76.8% in 2009, an improvement of 6.1%.
Even more shocking the five poorest performing districts were all in the Eastern Cape, namely Butterworth, Fort Beaufort, Libode, Mount Frere and Sterkspruit.
Against a background of swinging door provincial education leadership and a serious lack of service delivery hard questions need to be asked by the ruling party around their continued redeployment of clearly incompetent leaders.
Couple the above with the twin facts that the Eastern Cape is continually highlighted as the spiritual home of the ANC liberation movement and a stronghold capable of swinging any elections in the favour of the ANC the question must be asked; “Why does the ANC, in it’s role as the ruling party, continue to fail it’s youth in the Eastern Cape?”
Dare we say the words; ” Because the ANC needs dumb and compliant people to continue voting for it”? Or maybe the continued policy of cadre redeployment has finally run it’s course and the people will voice their displeasure at the next national election?
Frankly, it is embarrassing to be part of a province that is the home of the ruling party and that continues to be the whipping boy of South Africa when it comes to our failure to educate. The knowledge that the Eastern Cape once again produced the DUNCE Class of 2011, will certainly will not sit well with each and every 2011 East Cape Matriculant and has the capacity to make entry into the job market even more difficult.
Come on Mr and Mrs Education Department official – have the guts to take a stand and fight for the future of South Africa and our youth no matter their perceived political persuasion.
