An exploration into the school related factors that causes high matriculation failure rates in Physical Science in public high schools of Alexandra Township

摘要

The exploratory study investigated school related factors responsible for high matriculaion failure rates in physical science in public high schools ofAlexandra Township in South Africa. The target population included all Further Education and Training (FET) science educators and learners in AlexandraTownship. An extreme-case sampling method was used to select a sample of two schools. Data was collected through two different closed questionnaires, one for educators (n=10) and the other for learners (n=250). The results were analyzed using mainly descriptive tatistics.The results, according to the views and opinions of educators and learners showed that the main causes of high failure rates are poor educator qualifications, outdated teaching methods, massive workloads, high levels ofabsenteeism and acute deficiencies in aspects related to: resources, subject content, classroom management skills, proficiency in language of instruction and assessment, motivation and perseverance.Recommendations for practice and policy are suggested.