Lesufi: Gauteng had a chance to be number one
Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi has lamented a lost opportunity to become the country’s top performing province following the release of the 2017 matric exam results.
He was speaking at the official annoucment of the province’s results in Lyndhurst.
Gauteng scored 85.15% - a slight increase from 85.12% in 2016.
"If there was an opportunity for us to be number one, this was the opportunity. When everyone was dropping we had a chance to gallop just 0.9% to be where we are. But I fully understand as we have made drastic changes in the system by introducing specialised schools, teachers are no longer using chalk and talking there an ICT we have introduced and added new and more infrastructure," Lesufi told the media.
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He said some Gauteng schools are still experiencing challenges.
"We have nine factors we consider to determine whether schools are functional. It’s governance, infrastructure, teacher quality and son. The schools that don’t tick the nine factors are the ones that are not giving us the green light.”
Out of 97 284 pupils who wrote the matric exam, 82 826 managed to pass.
Lesufi said he is incredibly proud of the progress shown by township schools.
"Today we have invited all the township schools that have performed above 95%. Just to demonstrate that you can get quality education in Gauteng, regardless of where you are in the province. Townships schools are starting to close the gap.”
The department will from this year rank all Gauteng schools from 1-5, according to the learners' academic performance.
This will allow parents to choose schools based on performance and also allow the department to track the progress of different schools.