Education doesn’t add up

It is really difficult to pick out things that define us as a country, save for that one moment way back in 1994 that has been defined as miraculous, even by nonbelievers.

The transition to democracy. Sadly, we seem to have failed to live up to the demands that a young nation placed on the shoulders of the then young government. One of the areas in which government has failed is in correcting the imbalance in education. One needs to look only at the results of the matric class of every year since democracy.

The Independent Examinations Board (IEB), which serves mostly the well-to-do sections of society that can afford the astronomical fees that the parents pay to avoid their children attending government schools, always churns out close to 100% pass rates.

The department of basic education, on the other hand, has results that need a lot of decoding to understand. Umalusi, the qualifications authority in this country, is always at pains every year before the release of the national matric results to explain “progressed learners” and “marks adjustments”.

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While one needs to be careful not to slate everyone in the department because there are a lot of well-meaning and hard-working people, such as Gauteng MEC for basic education Panyaza Lesufi, every South African should be concerned about “explaining” the results, even before they are released.

Forget the little mishaps that occur before the examinations every year, like paper leaks which, even though limited, seem to happen without fail. It is the quality of the product the department is churning out at the end of the kids’ school career that is of major concern.

Even a casual observer will notice there is a consistent pattern of “dumbing down” the standard needed for a child to have a matric certificate. The recent announcement that pupils in Grades 7 to 9 only need 20% to pass mathematics is evidence that instead of solving the problems that are hampering the teaching process, we would rather have the bar set lower and thus churn out undercooked kids.

Education problems are two-fold, the logistical side and the actual delivery of the lessons in the classroom. It would seem that successive ministers of education have allowed the historical structural imbalances to derail their focus from ensuring effective delivery of education.

This almost hysterical focus on the matric class has allowed substandard practices to continue in the foundation phases, to the detriment of the whole system. Yes, the department inherited an education system that favoured white children over black children, but the path to correcting those imbalances is not helped by lack of adherence to certain basic requirements.

These include the need for a set number of teaching days that should be non-negotiable. Unionised teachers would want to lynch me for suggesting that their right to strike should not affect the number of teaching days or the proper completion of any syllabus.

So, as we go through our annual motions of bemoaning yet another set of “improving” results, we must take a hard look at ourselves and ask if we are prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to ensure that the celebrated public schools like Mbilwi in Venda are not an exception. We cannot continue on our current course and expect different results.