At this time of year, South African “matriculants” reflect on their successes or failures. For those unfamiliar with the term, it indicates persons who would now be allowed to enter university or you can say that they graduated from high school. While the correct use of the term would reflect that a person would now qualify to attend university, the term is loosely used just to indicate that a person finished high school.

Much is said about the performances of some individuals who obtained distinctions in up to twelve subjects. Newspapers are filled with articles about these learners and their accomplishments. This creates the impression that students are performing much better than they had in the past. To see this in perspective, however, we need to look at a number of aspects that would influence the results.



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