SACP congratulates Western Cape matriculants

The SACP in the Western Cape has congratulated the matric class of 2023, saying they worked hard in order to pass and also put the country on the world map.

“We express our words of gratitude to selfless educators, parents, guardians, tutors and all other stakeholders who contributed immensely to the success of the class of 2023,” provincial secretary Benson Ngqentsu said.

Ngqentsu said they were deeply encouraged by the performance of working-class schools in the Western Cape.

He said despite all the adversaries, the working-class schools achieved 100% and the lowest being in the margin being 67% pass rates.

Ngqentsu mentioned the Athlone School for the Blind and Nizibone Victor Mapolisa with some of their learners coming as top students in the country.

However, he said despite the slight improvement of the matric results in the Western Cape from 81.4% in 2022 to 81.5% for the year 2023, they were concerned about what appeared as a narrow concentration of top achievers from the most affluent schools and those with bachelor passes.

“Such a trend confirms the whole notion of skewed resource distribution in the Western Cape that favours the most affluent schools. In essence, such skewed resource distribution or social disparities are rooted in class inequalities.”

Ngqentsu noted that the working-class schools in the Western Cape such as no-fee schools achieved 76.71% on bachelors while the affluent obtained 83.85% and independent schools 91.49%.

This as working-class schools only achieved 30.9% while independent schools achieved 59.5% and fee-paying schools 47.8%.

“It is against this background that, in this DA-led Western Cape, working-class schools could only achieve a mere 1.9% in distinctions.

“Further, despite the overconcentration of bachelors to affluent schools, there is still a concerning decline of bachelors from 45.3% in 2021, 42.7% in 2022 to 42.2% in 2023, respectively, and also a decline in diploma from 23.6% in 2021, 25.3% in 2022 to 25.1% in 2023.

“Therefore, given this background and exemplary performance in provinces where the ANC headed alliance governs and albeit the persisting legacy of colonialism of a special type and apartheid in those provinces, it is evident that the ANC headed alliance remains the best placed organisation to lead the transformation currently under way. The majority people of our province should use the 2024 general elections as a platform to reject the... neo-liberal DA at the voting polls and thus reject its poor education and ultimately poor results,” Ngqentsu said.

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 17:26:59 GMTMayibongwe Maqhina

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