The transformation SA needs most is in education

Even though the disruptions of the Covid pandemic are being used to explain how our education system has been hard hit by lost teaching time, there are more fundamental reasons to be worried about our schooling.

University of Cape Town’s School of Education associate professor Joanne Hardman and Wits University mathematics education associate professor Craig Pournara have painted a gloomy picture of the post-apartheid public education system which, they said, needed an overhaul.

They said most South African pupils in public high schools are ill-prepared for Grade 12 and university, due to a decline in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) subject performance.

The decline in performance in those subjects – tracked from 2015 to 2019, before Covid hit the country – shows that pupils leaving school lack the vocational skills to become employable, exacerbating the already grave unemployment situation.

Just as worrying is the fact that the numbers of pupils taking on those Stem subjects in the first place is also on the decline.

Given that the future of the planet is going to hinge on technology, it is disturbing to see that South Africa’s public educational system doesn’t seem able to provide the human resources necessary for us to compete, or even tread water, in such a rapidly evolving world.

There needs to be a frank assessment of priorities. And hard questions need to be asked and answered.

Are our pass marks too low? Do too many matriculants gain a university entrance pass, only to fail their degree courses? Are we filling our young people’s heads with unattainable dreams?

Should we not be streaming our education system, as is done in parts of Europe, where those pupils who will go to university and those who will get technical training are identified early?

The transformation SA needs most is in education.