Top Bulawayo primary schools revealed

MALINDELA Primary School of Pumula North suburb was the top performing Bulawayo City Council owned school in the 2020 Grade Seven results with an impressive 81,8 percent pass rate.

The school's pass rate could be higher because the local authority considers unit 1 to 5 as a pass while the Government scale is units 1 to 6. According to the annual report of the Director of Housing Community Services, Mr Dictor Khumalo for the year ended 31 December 2020, Malindela was the best performing school, improving their 2019 pass rate by 11,8 percent. Aisleby was the worst performing school with a zero percent pass rate.

"Malindela topped all 29 City of Bulawayo primary schools with 81,8 percent pass rate and in second position was Ntshamathe with a 75,9 percent pass rate. JW Mthimkhulu was in third position with a 71,1 percent pass rate.

Mgiqika came in fourth position with a 61,5 percent pass rate and Mahatshula tumbled from first position in 2019 to fifth position garnering only 61,1 percent pass rate.

"There were 10 schools that scored pass rates below 50 percent according to council scale while as per Government scale these were only three.

The least performing school was Aisleby which had no learners passing all the five examinable subjects. While they had a zero percent pass rate as per BCC standards, they scored 13 percent using the Government scale that considers unit 6 as a pass mark," reads the report.

The local authority revealed that St Peters had 13,5 percent pass rate, second from the bottom and Manondwane had a 31,1 percent pass rate and were placed third from bottom.

"In 2019, Mahatshula, the top performing council school had a pass rate of 85,5 percent and in 2020, Malindela at first position had 81,8 percent. Malindela was the most improved with an 11,7 percent increase up from 2019's 70 percent pass rate.

"Ingubo dropped from 75 percent pass rate in 2019 to 38,7 percent in 2020, Manondwane also slide by 29,8 percent from 60,9 pass rate in 2019 to 31,1 percent in 2020. Senzangakhona (10) had the highest number of learners scoring 5 units, followed by Mawaba (7) and Mahlathini had five learners each who scored 5 units," reads the report.

In terms of performance by subject within the council owned schools, SiNdebele was the best performed subject with a pass rate of 83 percent, although the local authority still noted that this was lower than the 2019 pass rate of 92,4 percent.

"The English paper was also fairly performed with 78,7 percent of learners passing, the General Paper had a pass rate of 75,5 percent and Agriculture 67 percent, Mathematics at 57,1 percent pass rate was a challenge for most of our learners.

While the results were not as pleasing as in previous years, the department extends its gratitude and appreciation to the school heads, teachers and learners for doing their best under difficult conditions and producing some good results in the process," reads the report.

The National Pass Rate for 2020 Grade Seven examinations went down from 46,9 percent to 37,1 percent, with this attributed to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic which resulted in the national lockdown.

Schools eventually opened in phases during the third quarter of the year which heavily affected educational activities, subsequently resulting in the dropping of the pass rate.