While the Free State achieved the best matric pass rate in SA in the past five years, an academic described its Grade 8 and 9 results in the First Quarterly Test in March as "a dismal state of affairs".
More than four out of five Grade 8 pupils and three out of five Grade 9s in the province, of the schools that had uploaded pupils' results on the South African School Administration and Management System (SA-SAMS), failed the assessments.
SA-SAMS – a government portal - aims to assist schools with its own school administration and reporting, and is also a repository of test and exam results.