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Your Excellency, Premier Mr NJ Mahlangu,
Members of the Education Portfolio Committee,
Members of the Provincial Examination Board,
Members of the Mpumalanga Education and Training Council,
Representatives of the organized teaching profession,
Learner formations,
Representatives of School Governing Bodies,
Departmental Officials,
The Media,
Learners and their parents,
Ladies and Gentlemen.

After the Premier's announcement, I rise to address you all today as a very jubilant and proudperson. Proud in a sense of being part of a department / sector that has achieved its set goal, that of improving our overall results by almost 5% thus, a marked improvement of almost 10% on last years results of 48%.

Ladies and gentlemen you will recall that on the day I announced the 1999 Matric results, I also announced a few programmes that will improve this years results.

At the time, I had prevailed upon my Department to identify those critical areas of weakness and provide concrete strategies, accompanied by a plan, which focuses on key subjects with a pass rate of less than 40%. On the basis of this, detailed an immediate plan for 2000. This analysis was sent to schools for subject committees and relevant educators to scrutinize and implement remedial measures.

At least 39 schools with a pass rate of lower than 20% were identified.
*¸ study guides were prepared, printed and distributed
*¸ Focused workshops were conducted for educators from these identified schools with poor records of performance. Specific emphasis was placed on study skills and examination techniques.
*¸ Curriculum implementers were deployed to provide assistance in these areas.

At an education summit held in Malaga on 29 July 2000, attended by institutions of higher learning, the organized teaching profession, learner formations, as well as NGOs involved in education provisioning, concrete measures were developed for implementation as part of a series of intervention programmes to improve the general performance of Grade 12 candidates.

Whilst the summit alluded to the fact that focus should also be extended to include the other grades, an urgent need was identified to consolidate and implement a high-impact and sustainable programme of intervention particularly in the areas of Mathematics, Physical Science, Biology and English.

The Programme has yielded the following results.
Maths HG received 31% this year compared to 23% last year, an improvement of 9%.
Maths SG received 22% this year compared to 20% last year, an improvement of 2%.
In Physical Science, we recorded improvements both in the HG & SG, from 28% last year to 30% this year, an improvement of 2% and from 30% last year to 33% this year an increase of 3% respectively.

In English the 2nd language, hereto an improvement of 5% was recorded by the SG learners from 52% to 57%.
Whilst, the HG recorded the same at 48%.

I had also indicated at the same summit that, given sufficient impetus, we could be able to meet the urgent challenges of the 21st century by improving by 5% in 2000, 7% in 2001, 9% in 2002, 13% in 2003 and perhaps take a giant leap of between 15% and 18% by 2004.

The steering committee that was established by the summit focused attention on aspects of professional development and teacher assistance programmes. These dealt specifically with the improvement of examination writing skills as well as Saturday and vacation classes, various tutorials and other material assistance were provided. These included daily televised Grade 12 lessons, practical training and visits to institutions, assistance with career guidance and proper streaming, addressing poor language skills as a possible hindrance to maximum performance and the motivation of educators to improve their professional qualifications.

The unique support offered to many schools by the Liberty Life Learning Channel greatly assisted the teaching and learning endeavor. Participating schools were encouraged to re-arrange time-tables and tune in to the interactive programme.

Ladies and gentlemen, as one can notice that the intervention programmes of this year as well as those programmes by NGOS, particularly in Mathematics, workshops by NAPTOSA and SAOU and the Masifunde programme of SADTU all contributed to the improvement of our results.
I must point out that I did not expect these programmes to yield such results in one year. I, however, still believe, as agreed upon at Malaga, that the full impact will only be realised in two to three years time.

I wish to commend everyone who ensured the integrity of the examinations and spared the candidates unnecessary panic of possible disruptions.
Particular thanks must go to these in the examination section that did a sterling job. My thanks go to Ms Thandi Nkosi, Mr Molai and Mr Mashaba for managing this section so effectively, Well done! I also take the opportunity to commend the energy and enthusiasm of those dedicated educators and the parents whose support and encouragement ensured the educational excellence of their children. But more importantly, to the learners who made it despite all odds, I wish them all the best in their respective learning careers. To those who could not make it this year, there is yet another opportunity to give it another go. Thank to you the departmental officials, educators, parents and learners whose hard work and dedication has made us proud today. I am looking forward to working with you next year to achieve that percentage increase as I mentioned earlier.

May I now take this time to announce the 2000 Senior Certificate examination results. Of the 40 598 candidates who wrote the full examination, the overall pass rate is 53,1%. This represents an increase of almost 5% from last year's results.

Now I take this opportunity to announce the top 5 candidates for this year is
1. Liaan Cilliers from Kanonkop High School, Witbank with 7 A's.
2. Jacobus Schutte from Bergvlam High School, Nelspruit with 6 A's.
3. Louis Strydom from Ben Viljoen High School, Groblersdal with 7 A's.
4. Susan Bouwer from Secunda High School, Standerton with 8 A's.
5. Helene Jordaan from Standerton High School, Standerton with 7A's.

I further wish to announce the top 3 from historically disadvantaged communities / schools.

1. Thembisile Radebe from Khunjuliwe Secondary School, Standerton with 6 A's (One needs to mention that this particular school, has introduced Matric for the first time in the year 2000 and this school shares facilities with a primary school. It is worth noting that under these difficult and trying circumstances the learner produced these outstanding results).
2. Bonginkosi Mona from Bonginhlanhla Secondary School, Nelspruit with 4 A's.
3. Niniza Dlamini from Ndlela Secondary, Ermelo with 5 A's.

I also wish to announce that the schools with a 100% pass rate this year are
1. St Joseph's Secondary Combined School from Dennilton, Groblersdal.
2. Allandale Secondary School near Witbank. (Both these, are disadvantaged schools)

In closing, I wish to point out that the matriculants, top schools and districts will be honoured at an awards function by the end of January 2001.

<EOD>