Minister Grant Announces New National Senior Certificate (NSC) Awards Criteria for 2010 | Western Cape Government

News

News

Minister Grant Announces New National Senior Certificate (NSC) Awards Criteria for 2010

22 February 2010

This administration is determined to acknowledge the achievements of all learners who have excelled academically in the National Senior Certificate Examinations.

Therefore, in order to expand the number of learners being acknowledged, particularly learners from disadvantaged backgrounds, we have made the commitment to release additional categories for the class of 2010 and beyond.

In January 2010, the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) presented awards to schools and learners that were based on criteria formulated by the previous administration. These awards included categories such as "Excellence in Academic Performance", "Most improved schools", "Excellence in individual subjects", and awards to learners who had excelled academically.

However, after careful analysis and a review of the criteria, a number of additional awards will be presented in January 2011, which will hopefully incentivise our schools and learners to produce even better results.

Under the category "Most improved schools", the decision has been made to introduce awards for the "Most improved focus schools". There are currently 28 focus schools in the province, all of which specialise in specific subjects that are relevant to the Western Cape economy, catering for learners from previously disadvantaged communities. Therefore, schools that achieve the most improved results from 2009 to 2010 in this category will now be awarded.

Again under "Most improved schools", awards will be given to the "Most improved Dinaledi and Maths, Science and Technology schools (MST)."

At present, there are 56 Dinaledi and MST schools in the Western Cape, all of which have been established to improve performance in Maths, Science and Technology, particularly among disadvantaged learners. This category of awards will give recognition to schools that show the greatest improvement in their results from 2009 to 2010.

Under the category, "Excellence in individual subjects", an additional two subjects have been added. This category will now include Accounting and Life Sciences, together with Mathematics and Physical Science. Given that these subjects are taken by a large number of learners and are important "gateway subjects, we have decided that they should also be recognised.

In terms of the awards ceremony, for the first time since the National Senior Certificate Examinations began in 2008, only one ceremony will be held. Therefore, we look forward to having all learners recognised at the same function.

We are also confident next year's event will be a celebration all round. Not only will we be celebrating the academic achievements of individual school and learner performance, but the improvement of our overall pass rate and the reduction in underperforming schools.

We encourage all our candidates for the 2010 NSC examinations to stay focused and to ensure that they use this time effectively to prepare well and study hard.

The full document will be made available on the WCED's website.

Media Enquiries: 

Bronagh Casey
Spokesperson
Minister of Education, Donald Grant
Western Cape
Cell: 072 724 1422
Tel: 021 467 2377