Question NW982 to the Minister of Basic Education

Reply:

(a) This is not a statistic that is routinely calculated and reported on by the department, mainly because of the potentially misleading nature of this measure. Given that many people do not reach grade 12, the grade 10 to 12 throughput rate is sometimes thought to be a useful indicator of the overall proportion of youths who complete the NSC. However, it systematically underestimates the proportion of youths who complete the NSC, since the rate of grade repetition is particularly high in grade 10, resulting in an artificially inflated denominator for that calculation. Moreover, since learners who are counted in grade 10 migrate to TVET colleges and other educational pathways, and may well go on to achieve qualifications that are equivalent to the NSC.

The department is currently piloting an inclusive basket of indicators for national, provincial and school performance in the NSC. Amongst other indicators, the ratio of NSC passes to grade 10 enrolments is being considered as one indicator. If this indicator does become routinely reported it will be important to emphasize that it is not an accurate measure of the likelihood of youths completing grade 12.

What is official, within the Medium Term Strategic Framework and the Department of Education’s ‘Action Plan to 2019’ is the indicator titled ‘The percentage of youths who obtained a National Senior Certificate from a school’. The department has provided an in-depth methodological description of how to measure this, in the 2016 review of sector outcomes, titled ‘Report on progress in the schooling sector against key learner performance and attainment indicators’ (and available on the DBE’s website). Essentially, the indicator used in the Sector Report compares the annual number of NSC passes to an estimate of the 18-year-old population.

(b) The ratios of NSC passes to grade 10 enrolments (two years prior) are provided in the table below. The 2015 value of 39.8 is substantially lower than the 2015 value for the proportion of youths who obtained an NSC, which is 56.1%. This illustrates why a simple ratio of NSC passes to grade 10 enrolments cannot be interpreted as the percentage of people who go on to complete grade 12.

Table 1: Ratios of NSC passes to Grade 10 enrolment

Province	Grade 10 Enrolment	Matric Pass	“Throughput Rate”
	2012	2013	2014	2014	2015	2016	2014	2015	2016
EC	149 774	154 920	160 441	43 777	49 475	49 168	29.2	31.9	30.6
FS	59 948	60 643	56 519	21 899	25 416	23 629	36.5	41.9	41.8
GP	193 130	201 341	192 492	84 247	91 327	88 381	43.6	45.4	45.9
KZN	264 774	268 492	270 086	97 144	98 761	98 032	36.7	36.8	36.3
LP	176 279	187 804	193 803	53 179	66 946	63 595	30.2	35.6	32.8
MP	93 021	97 117	95 944	35 615	43 229	41 801	38.3	44.5	43.6
NC	21 739	22 727	22 515	6 715	8 064	7 902	30.9	35.5	35.1
NW	68 394	70 032	68 745	22 061	27 118	26 448	32.3	38.7	38.5
WC	76 436	83 234	79 327	39 237	45 489	43 716	51.3	54.7	55.1
SA	1 103 495	1 146 310	1 139 872	403 874	455 825	442 672	36.6	39.8	38.8

Provincial and national values for ‘The percentage of youths who obtained a National Senior Certificate from a school’ for 2014 and 2015 appear in the table below, which is extracted from the above-mentioned Sector Review on page 64. Final figures for 2016 have not been calculated yet, but the trend would largely follow the trend for the number of NSCs seen in the official DBE report for the 2016 Grade 12 examinations (title ‘National Senior Certificate Examination Report 2016’).

Table 2: NSCs over population for 2014 and 2015