Less Limpopo schools limping

The number of schools considered to be underperforming in Limpopo has continued to decrease year after year, the province's education department says.

In 2009, 737 high schools out of around 1410 in Limpopo were considered to be underperforming. Last year it went down to 369.

However, this year's matric results did not add new members to the so-called "Club 100", made up of schools with more than 100 matrics who passed maths and science.

Limpopo's two schools that are members of Club 100 -- set up by former education minister Naledi Pandor to help improve maths and science results -- remain Mbilwi High and Dendron High.

Club 50, made up of schools with fewer than 100 matrics who all pass in maths and science, had 38 member schools in the province.

Limpopo's matric pass rate was 63.9 percent for 2011, below its 70 percent target. The pass rate was 57.9 percent in 2010.

“This is a major progress and clearly this year we should reduce them (failures) to nothing,” education MEC Dickson Masemola said in Polokwane on Thursday.

“Last year we had many schools falling under what we called the 'serial underperforming schools' over a period of three academic years. They have improved significantly”.

The results indicated that three high schools in Mopani improved from 19.3 pass rates to 78 percent. Four others also performed well after being placed under a programme designed to help ailing schools.

However, three schools joined the list of underperforming schools after they recorded no passes at all.

Out of 73,731 pupils who wrote matric exams in Limpopo last year, only 12,946 (17 percent) qualified for university entrance.

Masemola said his department would ensure that school managers of unproductive schools accounted for the embarrassment they had caused the department.