KwaZulu-Natal Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube has congratulated the matric class of 2022 for defying the odds and for making it thus far as they sit to write their first paper today for their final year examinations.

In 2022, the matric pass rate in KwaZulu-Natal was 76.8% which set an important benchmark as the province seeks to attain an 80% pass rate in 2022.

“I would like to wish the KwaZulu-Natal Matric Class of 2022 the best of luck during their exams which started today as they wrote their final examinations.

 

I am incredibly proud of each and every Matric learner across the province. Leading-up to today, we acknowledge that this group of learners went through disturbances such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the July civil unrest and recently the devastating flood disasters in April and May.

 

In spite of these challenges, we are hopeful that they will do exceptionally well despite the odds that have been stacked up against them as they sit for this all-important milestone in their schooling careers.

 

KwaZulu-Natal has highest number of learners in the system with 198 866 full and part time candidates followed Gauteng. As it is always the case, the KZN Department of Education’s examination system is the biggest in the country, with 6022 invigilators managing the writing of the examination in 1780 centres.

 

We have set a clear benchmark from last year onwards that there should be no district in the province that achieves a pass rate below 80%. As such, Accountability Sessions were held for all schools which obtained 40% and below in the 2021 National Senior Certificate Examinations to ensure that we do not have schools that rank 40% and below in the 2022 NSC Examinations”, said Premier Dube-Ncube.

Premier Dube-Ncube expressed the Provincial Government’s gratitude to the learners, teachers, unions, parents and school governing bodies for playing their critical roles in preparation for the 2022 final matric examinations.

“To all the learners who have had to withstand extremely trying circumstances in preparation for their final year examinations, we salute you for your commitment throughout your schooling career and wish you success and a bright future. We cannot thank the parents, teachers, teacher unions and school governing bodies enough for working with us as dependable partners in ensuring that teaching and learning takes place without any major hinderances.

 

Our objective is to increase the number of learners passing matric while also paying more attention to special schools to ensure that learners in special schools remain on par with their counterparts,” said the Premier.

Premier Dube-Ncube further highlighted that the province had begun intensifying efforts to ensure learners quickly move into the digital era so that they have the skills set and entrepreneurial acumen to be part of the multitrillion rand digital economy.

“We are taking advantage of digitisation, robotics, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution and we recently launched the Mobile Digital Analytics Skills Laboratory in Pietermaritzburg because we want to expose our learners from a young people to a world of new horizons of work and careers which are broadened to include Data Analytics, Space Technology and Multimedia Production.

 

We are doing this by paying attention to subjects like Coding, Mathematics, Physical Science and other technology. The mobile labs we will be rolling out across the province are completely off the grid as they use solar power meaning that learning and teaching will not be affected when there is a power outage,” Premier Dube-Ncube emphasised.

Premier Dube-Ncube also called on communities to support the education of their children by protecting school infrastructure working with police, community policing forums and other stakeholders to protect school assets, high-tech equipment and buildings from vandalism, theft and destruction.