Programme Director
Honourable acting MEC for Education, Ms Bartlett
Members of the Executive Council and the Provincial Legislature
Chairperson and Members of the Portfolio Committee on Education DG – Mr. Justice Bekebeke
Executive Mayors, Mayors and Councilors
Veterans
HOD Pharasi, Senior Managers and Departmental Officials
Officials and Members of School Governing Bodies
Representatives of various donors and sponsors
Parents, Principals and Educators
Leaders and Officials of our Educator and Learner formations
Members of the Media
Honoured Guests
Learners
The people of the Northern Cape
Ladies and Gentlemen:
This leg of the journey for the class of 2015 has come to an end and after much anxiety and stress I am greatly pleased to be presenting to you the Matric Awards, which has become an annual event on our Government calendar. The journey continues after a brief stop to revitalize and recharge and also to gain some perspective on where these young people are heading.
This is an important opportunity as we are not just here to hand out Awards but to make private partnerships a reality as we join hands to prepare our matriculants for a beaming future beyond their schooling career.
As I said, Today starts another leg of your journey into becoming self-sufficient, economically active and valuable contributors to society. Your journey to adulthood in essence starts today and from this moment on you are the captains of your own destiny. To you our valued children; please continue on your exciting journey of educational
exploration. This Province is in need of those skills. Remember that every journey has a destination and when one ends a new one begins.
I want to express a word of gratitude to everyone who made a contribution towards this achievement by our learners and who will continue to play a role on their educational journey. To the parent’s thank you for your commitment, support and guidance in motivating these learners to achieve and excel.
To the learners I wish to say just as much as you owe it to yourselves and your teachers for the results achieved, you owe a great deal to your parents as well; therefore parents, take a bow. To the educators, thank you for your hard work and insisting on high quality work. A word of gratitude also goes to our stakeholders in the education sector and everybody that had a role to play in encouraging these young people to perform beyond what was expected.
Ladies and Gentlemen: The 2015 National Senior Certificate examination was written by a total of 11 623 full time candidates in the province. This represents the largest number of matriculants that sat for the exam over the last five years.
The 2015 National Senior Certificate examination was written by a total of 11 623 full time candidates in the Province. This constituted the highest cohort of candidates ever to be recorded in the history of the Northern Cape Province.
Out of a total of 11 623, a total of 8 064 candidates passed the examination compared to only 6 715 candidates in 2014 and 3 556 candidates were not successful.
The overhaul pass rate for the Northern Cape for 2015 has decreased by 7% from 76.4% to 69.4%.
The Province’s 2015 results have recorded the highest improvement on the number of distinctions and bachelor degree pass percentage compared to the last 5 years.
Ladies and gentlemen, comrades and friends;
Of the 11 623 candidates who wrote the NSC Exam, 1 381 candidates obtained distinctions, which are 731 more compared to 2014 and 2451 obtained access to bachelor’s degree university entrance.
Ladies and gentlemen 2015 held a lot of promise according to statistical theory of large systems. It was expected that with a large increase in learner numbers the province will register a drop in performance. This is evident in the overall pass rate for 2015, which shows a decrease of 7%.
The 39 schools that obtained results below 60% pose real and serious challenges to all of us and certainly calls for an intensification of our intervention strategies.
Going forward, the Department of Education in the Province will assess the impact, as well as the effectiveness of the intervention systems already in place, and come up with more creative and workable solutions to improve performance in the affected schools as a matter of urgency.
Ladies and Gentlemen, 9 schools obtained a pass of 100% this year, compared to 13 schools in 2014.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we applaud 4 of our learners who managed to score seven distinctions in their subjects as well as 20 others who scored six distinctions each.
We are also delighted to not only announce, but also celebrate a great achievement by a visually impaired learner, Justin Feris, who despite his challenges, achieved a pass that are amongst the envy of his abled peers. Justin from Retlamaleng overcame the odds and serves as an inspiration to both able and differently abled learners that with dedication and perseverance we can achieve what we set out to do. I herewith convey my congratulations to Justin and his parents as well as the educators who played an integral part in his accomplishment. We often forget about the educators who have walked this difficult road with our students and from the bottom of my heart i thank you and i salute you. For you are the wings beneath the wings of these remarkable young people.
I thought I would mention these statistics for the benefit of those that were not part of the media briefing this morning, so that all of us can be privy to the achievement of the Province.
Programme Director, Each one of our matriculants has travelled their own road to get here, but we are here together on the threshold of their future. You are overflowing with confidence, filled with great optimism and hope, and ready for the many possibilities and opportunities that await you and stand to improve and enrich your lives.
What we see in you today; what your parents, relatives, friends, teachers, and our business partners see in you today is the pride and future of our province; our country and our continent.
We are here today, in our numbers because we believe in you; we believe in you because you believed in yourselves.
I want to make use of this opportunity to thank our partners in the Private sector that place education as high on the agenda as Government does. They know that by investing in the future of our children, we make an investment in the future prosperity of our country. In this regard, I take this opportunity to express our sincerest thanks and gratitude to the following donors; Vodacom, MTN, Scarlet sun, ABSA, Standard Bank, Teta and De Beers.
Education remains the cornerstone of our future and is therefore correctly labelled as an apex priority. For this reason we have at Provincial Government level various Bursary and Financial Aid schemes such as the Premier’s Bursary Fund.
The objective of these Bursaries and Funding Schemes is to make higher education opportunities available on a full-time basis to Northern Cape youth that have academic potential but have no financial means. In turn we also invest in our skills base because these students must then come back and plough back their knowledge in the Province. We are however grateful that the Private sector also does their bit to make funding available to deserving students because Government is not able to do it alone.
Today is a celebration of your achievement and contemplation of what now lies ahead. Your achievements today have availed opportunities for you and given you choices which are yours to take and use. You worked hard to get here. As you make and take those choices, education should always remain the great facilitator.
To those of our children who did not succeed, we urge you to rise above this temporary setback and work your way back to success. Many a great man in history did not always succeed in their first attempt, but after persevering and working harder, they came up with some of the greatest inventions in modern life.
You have been given a second chance in the supplementary exams; grab it with both hands and make sure that you succeed this time around.
I want to conclude by congratulating the Department of Education for performing under very trying conditions and wish them well on the journey ahead to ensure that the Northern Cape Province delivers quality education to all our learners. To the rest of the Members of the Executive your efforts in making Education a priority and efforts in helping to shape the future of our learners do not go unnoticed. I wish everyone present here this morning, the learners, their families and relatives, all our partners in the broader education family, everything of the very best for 2016 academic year.
I thank you.