As the Class of 2015 awaits the matric results tomorrow, Umalusi has explained the reasons for its relatively poor performance. According to Professor John Volmink, chairman of Umalusi, the Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training, the widely expected lower pass rate was a result of the high number of "progressed" pupils last year.The Department of Basic Education has ruled that a pupil can repeat grades 10 and 11 only once. If he does not meet the requirements for promotion to the next grade, he must nevertheless be "progressed". The rationale for this is that it reduces the number of "unnecessary school dropouts" and gives every pupil the opportunity to leave school with a senior certificate.The policy on progression was implemented in 2013 to prevent pupils being retained in the same phase for more than four years.Umalusi maintains that the performance of progressed pupils accounted for, at most, 3.5% of the increase in the 2015 failure rate.Said Volmink: "T here was a drastic increase of 124105 in the enrolment of [matric] candidates in the Class of 2015, of which over 66088 were progressed learners."In 2014 "there were an estimated 30000 progressed learners writing the National Senior Certificate examination".Other factors contributing to the poor matric performance last year, said Umalusi, included improved marking standards, a higher number of borderline candidates and the higher standard of the exam papers.Volmink said "the standard of the papers catered for more challenging questions as compared to 2014" and "it can be argued that the standard of the question papers was too high this year".But standards "can't be dropped just to push up the [pass] rate".This is where you can get your resultsThe department's website www.dbe.gov.za.Results will also be available on SowetanLIVE via Times LIVE from 06:00 on WednesdayResults for the Western Cape will be available online from 14:00 on Wednesday at http://www.westerncape.gov.za/service/examination-information-and-results...