EDUCATION-SOUTH AFRICA: Growing Concern Over Falling Standards

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Anthony Stoppard

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 3 2000 (IPS) - Only 48,9 percent of South African school children who wrote their final exams in 1999 passed the test, according to figures released by the Minister for Education, Kader Asmal.

Countrywide, 533 399 senior school students registered to write the final exam.

For the past three years, less than half of South African students have passed their final exams and in 1998 only 49,3 percent of students secured their certificate.

Asmal describes the results as a “cause for sober reflection” rather than a major disappointment. Earlier he had said he was gratified that the trend in the overall national results seemed to be stabilising “prior to the expected advance as the new millennium gets underway”.

Some education experts were not as optimistic and insisted student’s results would not improve until South Africa sorted out persistent problems in its school system. They pointed to a desperate shortage of basic education material — including textbooks — in schools and a lack of discipline or “culture of learning” among South African students.

“You can scream as much as you like about the pass rate, but if we cannot get our schools to function properly, we are getting nowhere,” says Trust for Educational Advancement in South Africa, executive director, Lebamang Sebidi.

Education Policy Unit analyst, Salim Vally, points out that results from Black township schools indicated they were still performing poorly compared to schools in more advantaged areas.

“The situation in Black schools is such that we cannot expect any improvement in the pupils performance. Poor teacher training, a lack of educational resources and social conditions, militate against success in the schools in those areas,” he says.

However this does not mean that there have not been several bright spots among the results. Several schools in some of the South Africa’s harshest townships have reported pass rates of over 90 percent.

“If you look at the successful township schools, their facilities are no better than many others — the difference is good management,” comments Sebidi. “Students need to know that they are at school to learn and teachers are there to teach and nothing else”.

Asmal, who has a reputation as an effective minister, is expected to announce plans to ensure the improvement of results next year. He has already targeted an improved pass rate of five percent a year to get the results up to an acceptable level.

In a statement released ahead of the official announcement of the national results, Asmal promised to personally to lead visits to provincial education offices and targeted schools to insist on punctuality, motivation and professionalism on the part of all concerned with education.

He says he will also ask provincial Members of the Executive Council (MEC’s) to regularly supply him with plans to improve the education system in their provinces. These plans will go in his quarterly report to South African President Thabo Mbeki.

In the meantime, economists have warned that those students leaving school will struggle to find jobs in the formal economy, despite predictions that the South African economy may grow by as much as three percent, next year.

Economist, Azar Jamine explains that the economy was not generating many formal jobs and employers were using machines and technology to do jobs that could have been done by people to help avoid labour disputes.

He warns those finishing school: “Having a certificate alone is not enough. People need to study further and make sure they become computer literate because skilled people are in huge demand.”

Those pupils who failed their final exams have the possibility of continuing their education in adult learning centres, special programmes in technical colleges or private schools. Those who just fell short of passing the exams may be allowed to write supplementary tests that may push them over the pass mark.

Some may be allowed to repeat their final year of school, but this is a practice that the education department is trying to discourage as the high number of repeat students is placing a lot of pressure on the already struggling education system.