Gauteng was closing the performance gap between the province’s rich and affluent schools and the township schools, education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said on Wednesday.

He said there used to be a gap of between 40% and 60% between rich and poor schools in the province but now that gap had shrunk to a little under 3%.

Township schools achieved a pass rate of 89.82% in the 2019 matric exams, while the non-township schools achieved 92.61.%.

Lesufi said this was because of all the investments and strides that had been made in bettering township schools. These had resulted in it no longer being undesirable to enrol in a township school.

“All the combis and buses that were leaving the township are making a U-turn back to the township, because the quality of education has improved,” he said.

He suggested that township schools were now significantly more convenient than non-township schools as pupils were provided with free education, transport, school uniforms, food, stationery and sanitary towels.

“Gauteng contributed the most candidates qualifying for bachelor studies in 2019, at 43,494. This is up from 41,410 bachelor passes in 2018. Gauteng achieved the best  bachelor-pass rate of all provinces. Nationally, we contributed 23.4% of all bachelors achieved,” Lesufi said.

“Gauteng is still the leading province by virtue of the size of the provincial system. This is despite the increased enrolment compared to 2018,” he said.

More than 30% of pupils (about 30,000) who wrote the exams passed with a diploma pass.

“I am encouraged by the fact that more learners who passed the National Senior Certificate exams in 2019, of 74.73% learners (73,028 of 97,717 learners), passed with a bachelor or diploma pass qualifying them to go into higher education. This is up from 73.97% in 2018,” Lesufi said.