These are Gauteng's worst performing schools

The Gauteng education department on Wednesday named the worst performing schools in the 2020 academic year as Kgothalang Secondary School in the West Rand and Eureka High School in Springs.

On the plus side, provincial education MEC Panyaza Lesufi expressed satisfaction at how township schools had fared in the last academic year, with several recording 100% pass rates. These were Diepsloot Secondary No 2, Rusoord Secondary School, Marlboro Gardens Secondary School and Denver Secondary School.

Kgothalang holds the spot for the worst performing township school, while Eureka was named the worst performing suburban school. 

On Kgothalang, the education department said: “Out of the 234 matriculants who wrote the exam, only 31% passed. They did not even have a single distinction and only 5% of these learners managed to get a bachelor pass.”

Speaking at a ceremony held in honour of the province’s top performers in Ormonde, south of Johannesburg, on Wednesday, Lesufi committed to “adopting” the school to ensure that its performance improved this year.

On Eureka, the department said it achieved a pass rate of only 54%. This was far below the 65% average that the department targets each year. 

After the release of the matric results, Lesufi said his department dedicated the province’s achievements to the 34 teachers who lost their lives to Covid-19 in the last year.

“Unfortunately, we lost 34 educators. I want to dedicate these results to the 34 educators who sacrificed their lives so that our children could get an education and pass. We also lost 18 officials of the department,” he said. 

Lesufi hailed the province’s pupils for having fared well as they wrote their final exams after a school year disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, where pupils had to face prolonged school closures, shortened school holidays, after-hours and weekend classes and limited class time. 

Of the 110,184 matriculants who sat for the exams, 83.8% passed. This was a 3.5 percentage point reduction from the province’s performance in 2019 but Gauteng retained its second position nationally.

Lesufi, however, said this was not at all bad.

“We might accept that our results declined by 3.5 [percentage points] but the reality is: in the history of our province, and in the history of our country, no single province has helped 92,000 learners to pass matric – and more than 45,000 to get bachelor passes to go to a university of their choice.”

 “We congratulate the learners for their resilience, dedication and hard work displayed during this pandemic and wish them well in their future endeavours. We recommit that the top three achievers from all township schools will be awarded a four-year bursary to a higher education institution of their choice,” Lesufi added.     

“I am proud that our educators, our officials and indeed the entire leadership gave us the support needed.”

The number of Gauteng matriculants who qualify to pursue bachelor degree studies increased from 43,494  in 2019 to 49,679 in 2020. The province achieved 41,459 distinctions, compared to 37,422 in 2019, across all subjects.

Meanwhile, 82 township public schools achieved a pass rate higher than 90%.

“This is down from the 132 schools that achieved above 90% last year. It must also be noted that just over 91.7% of Gauteng schools perform above the nationally defined benchmark for school underperformance of 65%,” he said.

Lesufi shone the spotlight on Lufhereng Secondary School in Doornkop, Soweto – saying it was the most improved school.

The school performance moved from 51.9% (in 2019) to 86.1% (in 2020). The school also significantly upped its percentage of bachelor passes, registering 48.1% in 2020 compared to 15.3% in 2019.

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