Sooner than later we will be importing chartered accountants, warns DG

Decline in pupils taking commercial subjects raises concern

Basic education minister Angie Motshekga announced that the matric class of 2022 has achieved a 80,1% pass rate.
Basic education minister Angie Motshekga announced that the matric class of 2022 has achieved a 80,1% pass rate.
Image: Antonio Machuve

SA could face a serious shortage of technical skills in the field of commerce as the number of matric pupils writing subjects in this category is showing a decline.

This was the concern expressed by director-general in the department of basic education Mathanzima Mweli as he presented the technical report.

The report showed that the number of pupils enrolled for accounting increased from 95,864 in 2020 to 108,631 in 2021. However this figure declined to 107,239 in 2022.

Business studies underwent the same trend increasing from 215,002 in 2020 to 250,918 in 2021. But it fell to 247,784 in 2022. Economics also surged from 123,471 in 2020 to 143,728 in 2021 and last year dropped to 141,208.

“Sooner than later we will be importing chartered accountants if we don’t encourage more learners to enrol in these subjects,” Mweli said.

Matriculants whose results are coming this year did grade 1 in 2011 and they were 1, 083,190. However, they were 752, 003 who wrote matric exams at the end of last year.

This means 307,560 pupils left the schooling system in the past 12 years.

Mweli said the decline began at grade 4 when pupils begin to learn subjects not in their home language.

Image: Antonio Muchave

The class of 2021 had 1.12 million pupils who did grade 4 and this number declined in grade 5 by over 30,000 pupils.

The same happened last year with 1.11 million pupils in grade 4  and this decreased to by over 25,000 to 1.08 million.

A total of 52,961 progressed pupils enrolled for matric in 2022. Of this, 48,361 who wrote exams and 20,975 passed which is a 43.4% pass rate. Six of them got distinctions in maths and five in physical science.

dlaminip@sowetan.co.za


Would you like to comment on this article?
Register (it's quick and free) or sign in now.

Speech Bubbles

Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.