Independent Examinations Board delighted with results

Although the Independent Examinations Board (IEB) experienced a slight drop in the matric pass rate from 98.92% last year to 98.82 this year, it said “all candidates who passed achieved a pass that is good enough to enter tertiary study”.

IEB said just over 12,000 – 11,818 full-time and 779 part-time – candidates wrote the exam and Umalusi monitored all its examination processes in its 227 examination centres across South Africa.

Of those numbers, it revealed that “89.51% [compared to 90.65% in 20180 of the cohort achieved entry to degree study, 7.91% [compared to 7.33% in 2018] qualified for entry to diploma study and 1.4% [compared to 0.95% in 2018] achieved entry for study at the Higher Certificate level”.

Anne Oberholzer, CEO of the IEB, wrote in a statement last week that it was important to note that the perception that “international” qualifications – such as those offered at some private schools – were superior to South Africa’s own curriculum is void of “any shred of valid evidence”.

“The claims play to the flawed perceptions of many who for some reason believe that if anything is international and not local, it must be superior,” said Oberholzer.

“When it comes to education, assessment, teaching and having local quality assurance, this is simply not true. The claims are spurious at best and exploit the insecurities of parents and pupils who simply do not have an understanding of the South African educational order, and the quality and standing of SA’s National Senior Certificate [NSC], not only with our local tertiary institutions, but the vast majority of international institutions that recognise the quality and validity of the NSC.”

She implored South Africans to question the claims that an “international” curriculum is superior to the local, national curriculum and NSC, and warned against those claiming that these international qualifications better prepare school-leavers for the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution.

“Parents and teachers should not be naively led to believe that because something has an ‘international’ label to it, it must be better, can open more doors or provide a more rewarding learning experience.

“On the contrary, many of the falsehoods and claims of superiority are an insult to the very good national educational institutions.”

– jenniffero@citizen.co.za

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