Tebogo Monama

Tebogo Monama

Candidates who were not eligible to write the matric final examinations have until 2011 to rewrite.

With the introduction of the new curriculum statement is year, pupils who failed last year's exams were not eligible to enrol at schools.

But they now have until 2011 to rewrite based on the old curriculum at specific further education and training colleges.

Some pupils rewrote the exams in May-June this year.

Last year, at least 21000 Grade 12 pupils in Gauteng failed the old curriculum.

Registration for next year's exams closed on September 30.

For this year's exams, only 294734 of the 410734 who registered to write actually did. And of these, only 20 percent passed. This was after the Department of Education implemented intensive five-month revision workshops to ensure that the pupils passed the rewrite exams.

In a statement, the department said that matric candidates would be able to write the exams in May to June next year. "If an exam takes place on the same day as the national elections, it will be moved to a later date on the exam session."

The department also said that it would retain the current Dinaledi schools.

"The Dinaledi schools are focus schools for the teaching and learning of mathematics and science.

"It was agreed that no new schools would become Dinaledi schools and these schools would not lose their status until 2011.

"During this period, these schools would continue to receive appropriate human and material support.

The rationale for this decision is that additional maths and science teachers were only appointed to Dinaledi schools this year.

Moreover, this year's Grade 12 pupils will be the first to write the new matric and will set a standard against which to measure future targets. A target of 50 percent in maths and science was set for each pupil," said the department's Lunga Ngqengelele.