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The condition of primary and secondary education in the Northern Cape measures favourably, particularly in terms of matriculation results, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) reports in a series of nine provincial publications on this issue. Almost three-quarters (73%) of Grade 12 learners in the Northern Cape passed the matriculation examination in 1996, placing this province's pass rate second in the country and 7% behind the Western Cape. The Northern Cape pass rate was also highest in the country for English, second highest for mathematics and physical science, and third highest for biology. The provincial reports provide information about an education database at individual school level and include data from several HSRC research projects, such as the School Register of Needs Survey, the Longitudinal Survey of Scholastic Achievement, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the HSRC Register of Graduates. The educational indicators included in this series of publications provide information on the condition of educational facilities and the extent of educational provision. The availability of resources, materials, equipment and services is also discussed. Indicators of the outputs of the education system are the matriculation results, the findings of the Longitudinal Survey of Scholastic Achievement in mathematics, science and English, and the results of the TIMSS. "Reliable and accessible information on education is increasingly becoming a prerequisite for informed decisions on policy and priorities in education", Mr Charles Sheppard, Director of Education and Training Information Systems at the HSRC said. He added that regularly updated information on strategic educational indicators could facilitate planning, delivery and monitoring of educational provisioning in South Africa. The School Register of Needs Survey ? constituting one of the most extensive data-gathering and information analysis projects in the country that was conducted at 32 000 schools in 1996 ? revealed that three-quarters of the schools in the Northern Cape were primary schools. Despite the geographical size of the Northern Cape, the schools in the province constituted less than 2% of the schools in the national survey. Most of these schools had relatively small enrolment figures, with nearly 25 % having fewer than 50 learners. The learner:classroom ratio was generally good in the province with the average never exceeding 40:1 and below 25:1 in a large proportion of the districts. Although most of the province had a learner:educator ratio of 30:1, this ratio was exceptionally high in Williston and in a small number of districts it varied between 31:1 and 50:1. Although educators made up 90% of the staff complement, learners with special needs faced very difficult circumstances in the Northern Cape. At the time of the survey, this province employed no psychologists and less than 0,5% of the staff was made up of specialist educators. Very few schools were considered unsuitable for teaching, although certain inadequacies regarding furniture, media collections and equipment, laboratories and other specialised classrooms, running water and toilet facilities were recorded at a number of schools. Only approximately 5% of the schools in the province used shelters for instruction and 2,5 % had no toilets available on site. Despite the rural nature of the province and the large area it covers, hardly any schools were without services such as telecommunications, electricity and water. The percentage of over-age learners in the primary grades of this province was below 16%, but the problem increased in the higher grades to between 15% and 18%. A comparison of the 1985 and 1994 data recorded in the HSRC's Register of Graduates revealed a decrease in the percentage of white graduates residing in the Northern Cape, as well as an equal increase in the percentages of both African and coloured graduates. The number of graduates in the management and medical sciences remained virtually the same over this period, while that in the human sciences increased and in the natural sciences decreased.
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