The replacement of the old Senior Certificate with the new National Senior Certificate (NSC) in 2008 was greeted with considerable suspicion. Once the results of the first cohort was released, various commentators speculated in the press about the standard of the examination and its associated curriculum. Are these fears warranted?

Malcolm Venter
The 2009 Matric results have, once again, revealed the sad state of our education system, with two out of every five who wrote failing, and with a pass rate 2% lower than in 2008. The pass rates for gateway subjects such as Maths, Science and Accounting, and the failure rate for Home Language were [...]