In 2018, the national matric pass rate was 78.2%, up from the 2017 pass rate of 75.1%. Of all nine provinces Gauteng had the highest pass rate of 87.9%.
The Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality IV, a survey which was conducted in August 2013 in a representative sample of 298 schools and 7,117 learners across all nine provinces of South Africa shed some light into some interesting aspects in the education systems within the provinces, particularly the distribution of learner’s access to a school library.
The reason South Africa’s basic education system may never see the light is that when one MEC aims for a 90% matric pass rate in their province, the other one has to think about how they can close the 85.3% gap of schools without libraries. Of course, it’s not Lesufi’s fault that other provinces are under-performing, it’s an argument subject to quite a lot of things. However, it is imperative to note that the national results depend on provincial results. When a child in Limpopo or Eastern Cape can’t get to school or can’t get extra study materials because they don’t have access to a library, their results are put at risk.
The first start would be the scrapping of provinces.