Department of Education gives 5% helping hand to some students
- The Department of Basic Education has announced that it will be giving certain students a helping hand
- Extra marks will be awarded to students in up to three subjects in order to help them secure a pass mark
- This comes in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic on the education system
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The Department of Basic Education has announced that learners will be leant a helping hand this year.
Students in Grade 4 to 9 will be awarded up to 5% extra marks in up to three subjects to help them pass the academic year.
This is a 2% increase over and above what was given to the same grades last year to aid pupils.
Source: UGC
Professor Mary Metcalfe, from Wits University, has applauded the move in light of a difficult academic year:
“This is guidance that’s been given to schools at a time of COVID-19 which is the most unusual year of schooling we have ever seen internationally and in SA. Learners did not have a full year of schooling."
The SABC reports that Metcalfe called for students to be supported during this tough and stressful time:
“We need to support learners; they’ve had a very tough year, a very stressful year and they need to be reassured that the education department and community and family support is going to support them in the next two to three years of catch up."
While time is limited for certain grades, the opportunity to catch up is there for the lower grades, explained the expert:
"Of course, the Grade 11s have very limited time moving into Grade 12 to catch up, but many other learners need to know that they haven’t covered everything, that it is not their fault, that they are going to be catching up in 2021 and 2022.”
Earlier, Briefly.co.za reported that Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande is impressed at how university students have been getting better results now than over the past years.
South African universities have had better results since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic according to him.
He said that his department had been monitoring the reasons for the better performances and they found many factors that could have been contributing to this.
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Source: Briefly News
