OSCAR MABUYANE | Eastern Cape matric results’ star keeps rising

Against all odds, Eastern Cape's grade 12 pupils in 2023 improved the matric pass rate to an unheard of 81.4% from 77.3% in 2022.  

This big improvement in the grade 12 results is the outcome of a concerted joint effort by parents, teachers, pupils, the ANC-led government, communities, guardians, and a number of private organisations that joined forces to improve performance of our matriculants.  

Over the years, our province was lingering at the bottom of the table with poor fluctuating matric results, attracting unlimited ridicule and held an unviable record of always being the least top performing provincial education department.  As we committed ourselves to improve both the quality and quantity of our grade 12s, like-minded individuals and companies threw their weight behind our efforts as the ANC-led government.  

Inspired by the Freedom Charter’s commitment to ensure that education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children, the ANC’s 2009 elections manifesto committed to ensure progressive realisation of universal schooling, improving quality education and eliminating disparities.

As we made education one of our top priorities, we were mindful of the challenges facing pupils, schools and communities, hence we committed to major renewal of our schooling and education system. In 2009 the province recorded a 51.0% pass rate for grade 12.

This is why we are over the moon when the class of 2023 records an 81.4% pass rate, the highest for our province.

I am excited that the largely rural districts of Alfred Nzo East and West, Chris Hani East top the provincial performance charts in the Eastern Cape, with more pupils obtaining top grades.

It is amazing that the grade 12 pupils whose results we are celebrating today were still at pre-school when the ANC prioritised education and committed to improve schooling in 2009.  

Over the years, a number of ANC-led government administrations invested about R225.6bn in school infrastructure, grant funding to schools, teaching, learning, school nutrition, pupil and teacher support material to ensure realisation of our manifesto commitments.  

Because of these investments, we are able to provide the much-needed support to all public schools through subsidies, grant funding, and funds allocated to the needs of each school.

When I tabled the maiden state of the province address at the beginning of the current sixth administration term of government in 2019, I said: "In our education targets for this term, we prefer quality outcomes than quantity, hence our focus will be on improving outcomes in maths, science, accounting, technology and tourism.”

Furthermore, I said to the people of our province, going back to below the 70% mark for our grade 12 results was not an option.  The results of the class of 2023 show that the work we continue doing as the ANC-led government, ANC structures together with pupils, schools, parents, communities, teachers, and social partners is yielding good results in our province.

In celebrating these much-improved Eastern Cape grade 12 results for the 2023 academic year, I want to appreciate the contribution by former deployees of the ANC, parents, communities, teachers, social partners, (teachers' union) Sadtu, the national and provincial departments of basic education, particularly the late former MEC Mandla Makupula, current MEC Fundile Gade and his team in prioritising the education of our children.  

While we still have a lot of work to do in implementing this manifesto commitment, we must use these improved results to celebrate the results of our collective work and to plan how best to address challenges facing the education system. One of our priority areas is to work together with families, pupils, teachers, law enforcement agencies and communities to attend to the needling causes of school dropout in our entire education system, not only at the grade 12 level.

For us as the province, to grow and continue giving more people a better life, we must keep our children at school, skill and empower them to obtain higher education qualifications so that they can start their own businesses, get the jobs of their dreams and contribute in building our province to be a better place.  

The broader provincial collective working in the education sector has a duty to up the ante in fighting drug abuse, use and selling of drugs in our schools because this criminality affects schooling and takes some of our children out of the education system, robbing them of their brighter future. For us to win the war, we must design comprehensive pupil, parent, community, teacher and school supporting systems to ensure that no drugs are sold or used in our schools.  

As we continue improving our education system, we will always be guided by Nelson Mandela’s wise words that: “It is not beyond our power to create a world in which all children have access to a good education. Those who do not believe this have small imaginations.” 

Our province registered this much improved performance because of sacrifices made by our teachers at schools, parents who are actively involved in the education of their children, communities that support local schools through initiatives like operation fukama, committed department of education officials, traditional leaders, private sector and civil society organisations, which invest their resources in the education of our children and the ANC-led education portfolio committee of the provincial legislature.  

The stability in the relationship between the provincial department of education, teachers and their unions contributed to this remarkable historic outcome we are celebrating in the province in the history of matric results.

These are some of the things we have to sustain for the benefit of our children and for the realisation of the manifesto commitments we have made to the people of our country.

An improvement  in education outcomes is a direct response to our skills development  and serves as catalyst to the socioeconomic trajectory of our province.

• Mabuyane is premier of the Eastern Cape and provincial chairperson of the ANC