Can KZN reach a 95% matric pass rate?

EDUCATION EXPERTS DIVIDED ON 2025 GOAL

- MONISHKA GOVENDER

ORIENT Islamic pupils acknowledge the pressures of reaching the 2025 goal, but said they remain grounded and faith driven. From left are: Goolam Mustafa Abdool, Sayfullah Khan, Talha Motala and Ibrahim Badat. I Supplied

(Supplied)

THE KwaZulu-Natal Education Department has set an ambitious goal to increase the matric pass rate to at least 95% by 2025, but education stakeholders question whether this target-focused approach addresses fundamental learning challenges.

While officials celebrate recent successes, teachers’ unions warn about burnout and the neglect of holistic education in pursuit of statistical achievements.

The recent announcement, made by Education MEC Sipho Hlomuka, comes on the back of what he described as a “buoyant start” to the academic year following the strong performance of the Class of 2024.

“While we celebrated those achievements, we recognised that our real challenge lay ahead, to surpass our own success,” said Hlomuka.

“We therefore developed a 2025 academic improvement plan, aimed at improving our pass rate from 89.5% to a minimum of 95%, with the ultimate goal of reaching 100%.”

According to Hlomuka, each of the province's 12 districts had crafted district-specific improvement plans aligned to the overall provincial strategy. These have already been activated across schools.

“Our provincial vision remains clear: every pupil who sits for the final examination must pass. We know that external factors sometimes make a 100% pass rate difficult, but we are determined not to fall below 95%. This would still represent significant growth from 2024,” he said.

However, not all education stakeholders are convinced that setting such a high target was the right move.

Thirona Moodley, spokesperson for the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa), expressed strong reservations.