Passing matric has become a hollow victory

As Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga announced the matric results yesterday, experts said celebrating the pass rate would be “almost farcical”, considering the number of students who had not made it to their matric year due to the country’s high dropout rate.

This comes after the department of basic education (DBE) hosted just over 30 of the country’s top performers yesterday at the Vodacom Dome in Midrand, before the announcement of the 2019 National Senior Certificate results.

Activist Equal Education organisation said although it applauded the hard work and effort of the 790,405 candidates who sat in the 7,416 examination centres across the country to write matric, “celebrating this pass rate has become almost farcical”.

Equal Education researcher Malin Steinsland said the difference in pass rates when dropouts were considered was “striking”.

Daniella Horwitz from the DG Murray Trust project, The Zero Dropout Campaign, agreed. “Adequate tracking of dropouts at school level does not exist in South Africa,” she said.

The national matric pass rate “sounds great, but a closer look behind the numbers reveals a bleak picture.

“Of the group of pupils who entered Grade 1, 12 years ago, around 40% dropped out before matric, 37% are likely to pass, and only 13% who do pass go on to access university immediately after matric .

“The major failure of our education system – the number of children who drop out before they reach matric – is obscured by the annual national matric pass rate that dominates the headlines each year.”

Triggered by statistics that reflected an “almost stagnant pass rate”, Steinsland criticised the department’s solution to tackling dropouts “by introducing a standardised national examination at the end of Grade 9, along with a three-stream model that will allow pupils to choose between vocational, occupational and academic pathways after Grade 9”.

Steinsland said that although Equal Education supported the efforts to strengthen and expand occupational and vocational opportunities for pupils, it was wary about the implementation.

“Instead of treating a symptom – by declaring that pupils drop out because they are not academically inclined – the DBE must make every effort to ensure that pupils receive quality education in the foundation phase,” said Steinsland.

“This will allow them to choose their own academic pathways, rather than be forced into one, or [forced] out of school entirely by a failing system.

“Alternatives should expand the choices pupils have, without unfairly streaming them into restrictive technical pathways that are likely to disadvantage those from poor and working-class backgrounds.”

Horwitz also said that the department needed to “get smart” about the ways it collected data through rigorous tracking of academic performance, behaviour and chronic absenteeism, which could assist in identifying those vulnerable to dropping out.

“Better tracking systems will help us be more accurate in understanding how many hopeful Grade ones make it to the matric exam 12 years later. If we act on the early warning signs exposed in the data, it might even help more of them to do so,” said Horwitz.

– jenniffero@citizen.co.za

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