CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by James Brew, South Africa, January 2000
THEME = EDUCATION
Five years after the end of apartheid, black students in South
Africa
still come off worse in the public matriculation examinations
The 1999 national matriculation pass rate of 48.9%, more or less held firm with the 49.3% in 1998 and was ahead of 1997's 47.8%. The intention, however, had been, to improve on the 54.4% pass rate recorded in 1996.
Professor Jonathan Jansen is a well-known educational policy analyst. He is also vice-rector of the University of Durban- Westville and is not happy with the examination results. "Clearly, year after year since 1994, we have had more or less the same results." He has called on Education Minister, Kader Asmal, to publicly admit that there was a "matric crisis" and to hold a seminar to work out "concrete plans" with interested parties.
"A major factor in the poor matric showing is a lack of professional support for teachers", says Beverley Bojang, a senior subject adviser. These include providing in-service training for teachers and monitoring what is going on in the schools. She says there is a growing gap - at least in black schools - between what is taught and what is sought by matric examiners. Black schools have never had adequate professional support services, and the situation worsened last year, as provincial education departments further reduced them in an attempt to operate within the budget.
In most countries, labour costs make up 50%-60% of national education expenses. Currently, South African teachers salaries soak up 91% of the Education Budget of R46.8 billion (1999), which leaves just 9% for building schools, providing books, supporting universities and technical colleges, funding bursaries and providing in-service training for educators.
Kader Asmal says this was cause for sober reflection rather than for major disappointment. He was most gratified to see the overall national performance in the matric results stabilising. He is confident that foundations are in place for steady progress, with a targeted improvement of 5% in the pass-rate per year.
Let's take a closer look at some results. Three provinces - - Northern Province, Gauteng and Kwazulu-Natal- have improved on last year's results, while the other six have dropped. Of these, the Eastern Cape registered the biggest drop, from a 45.1% pass-rate to 40.2%. Although the Western Cape saw a drop of 0.2% to 78.8%, it remains the highest in the country. Helen Zille is a Member of the Executive Committee for Education (MEC). She is delighted with the performance of the province's 37,000 students.
Looking at the other end, the Northern Province's pass rate of 37.5% is the worst of all the provinces.
However, Professor Jansen, blames the general poor matric showing on insufficient teaching time, inadequate teaching resources and the poor quality of matriculation teachers. Judith Williams is an education specialist. She says there are management problems in schools, time-tables are not adhered to, and teachers are guilty of misbehaviour such as chronic absenteeism.
Another point of view comes from a trade unionist, Trevor Trout. "Passing the matric is the only gateway to tertiary education and the job market, and it forces everyone to go that route. It does not prepare you for any kind of employment. After spending 12 or 13 years in school, people have nothing. They're not trainable".
Later this year, Kader Asmal will lead delegations of his senior officials to the provinces, after spot checks by national officials in the past six months had revealed the scale of dereliction in many schools. Asmal is determined to reverse the record. The nine provincial MECs have to come up with plans to improve their results. These plans will be included in Asmal's quarterly reports to President Thabo Mbeki.
END
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