Just days after the 2024 matric results, South Africans slammed the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) congratulatory message, suggesting that they claimed easy victories.
Image: Jehran Naidoo/Independent Media.
Just days after the 2024 matric results, South Africans slammed the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) congratulatory message, suggesting that they claimed easy victories.
“Every year the Democratic Alliance has argued for the minister of basic education to tell South Africa the truth about the Real Pass Rate,” Maimane stated that the DA must tell the nation the truth.
“This time the DA is heading the ministry of basic education. Will they tell South Africans the truth about the real pass rate? Will they drop the lie of 30% and 40%.”
Although South Africa's 2024 matriculants scored the highest pass rate since the country's democratic transition, the "real" pass rate, which includes the number of students who drop out before completing their examinations, remained much lower than 60%.
The official matric pass rate for the Class of 2024 was revealed on Monday by Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube.
A record 87.3% of public school pupils who took their National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams at the end of last year passed satisfactorily.
This is a 4.4 percentage point rise from the 2023 group which got 82.9%.“The truth will set us all free.
We need to calculate the pass rate not only for those who wrote the exam but those who were left behind.
We need to calibrate the pass rate honestly, focusing on 50% as a pass mark in all subjects,” he said on X.
Maimane added this would help them see the improvements in schools that were underperforming, “which teachers are doing a disservice.”
“When everything is measured at 30% and 40% all teachers claim 100% pass rate and all schools claim to be doing well,” he said.
The DA has always claimed to have been governing well wherever it governed. But citizens on social media called out the DA for being deceitful.
The DA was also slammed for claiming victory on the Hammanskraal water.
This comes after Dr Nasiphi Moya, the City of Tshwane mayor, confirmed last week the safety of water in the area.
This will end a 20-year drought and unsafe drinking water supply for the community.
Former Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink, a DA councillor, has defended the party’s involvement in the Hammanskraal water project, saying that it was removed before the completion of the project.
Speaking to IOL, Jacob Mabotse, a resident in Hammanskraal appreciated Moya’s efforts saying the DA must not claim anything.
“Why does the DA want to claim victory because they did not do anything for us? We had a Cholera outbreak here (Hammanskraal) and they were in charge and not doing anything. People died and all they did was press briefings and all that,” he said.
Phala Morudu from Mamelodi, a location in Tshwane, said since ActionSA took over things are a bit better now compared to when the DA was in power.
“Even when President Cyril Ramaphosa came here during his campaign trail last year, he even said it himself that there was “no governing better” as they claimed.
"They now want to come as if they delivered services for us. Never,” she said.
Power cuts, water shortages, sewer spillages and filthy streets are some of the things she complained about the DA.
IOL has requested commentary from the DA but to no avail.
IOL Politics
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