Quality education in foundation phase ‘will fix education system’

Even though the 2019 matric class achieved a 98.82% pass rate for the Independent Examinations Board (IEB) and 81.3% in the National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams, experts have warned there is still plenty of work to be done in the foundation phase in order to improve the state of the education system as a whole.

Education movement Equal Education’s co-head of research Rone McFarlane said the department of basic education must make every effort to ensure that pupils receive quality education in the foundation phase.

“The consequence of a weak foundation phase is weak academic outcomes in high school – and the consequence of that is that many pupils never reach matric, or attain a tertiary qualification,” said McFarlane.

She said Equal Education welcomed Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga’s acknowledgement that this phase was critical and her plans to address desperately poor literacy through the introduction of initiatives such as a national reading plan for primary schools.

McFarlane said to measure the maths and science outcomes of South African pupils, relative to the other countries, required analysis of pupils’ performance in the international, standardised assessments that South Africa participates in, such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) assessments.

TIMSS data has been collected from students at Grades 4 and 8 since 1995 every four years, and in the latest report in 2015, South Africa showed the biggest positive improvement.

All this meant, though, was that the country moved from last to next to last, with only Saudi Arabia performing worse in maths.

In science, South Africa came last out of all 59 countries who participated in the study.

Equal Education researcher Malin Steinsland has suggested ways in which the education system could be improved, in order to expand the choices that pupils have, without unfairly streaming them into restrictive technical pathways that are likely to disadvantage pupils from poor and working-class backgrounds.

Steinsland said the department of basic education’s rationale seemed to be that a standardised general education certificate would make it easier for pupils to transition to other education opportunities, such as technical and vocational education and training colleges.

The years from Grades R to 3, the organisation said, were life-altering for pupils because it was when the foundation must be laid for learning in all the later grades.

“The consequence of a weak foundation phase is weak academic outcomes in high school,” said Equal Education.

Education expert professor Mary Metcalfe said, nationally, only 60% of pupils reached Grade 12 and only 37% of those who started the journey actually passed.

She said that in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo, fewer than 45% of pupils complete Grade 12 and, given the poor NSC results in these provinces, fewer than that emerge with a pass.

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