Matric exams are already in full swing and we wish the best of luck to each and every pupil writing these important exams.
However, even as they write, a ministerial committee has been established to reconsider pass requirements and the quality of the matric exams themselves.
Matric exams are already in full swing and we wish the best of luck to each and every pupil writing these important exams.
However, even as they write, a ministerial committee has been established to reconsider pass requirements and the quality of the matric exams themselves.
In recent years government has consistently lowered the bar in terms of matric pass requirements in order to create a false impression that the quality of the education system is improving. Whereas in fact it has been in steady decline for some years and the only people who believe otherwise are the government officials who create this illusion. Every year ministers and MECs come out after the publication of matric results and grandly congratulate themselves on doing a good job.
They have not done a good job at all. Those ministers and MECs have done a terrible job. They have squandered billions upon billions of rands that were supposed to ensure a better future for the next generation. Instead, those officials have wasted our money on self-aggrandisement, incomprehensible incompetence and ultimately the destruction of our education system. Then they tell each other that things are improving. They’re not.
Every year education routinely gets the biggest funding allocation when the national budget is presented to Parliament. This year the Eastern Cape Education Department received 45% of the provincial budget, yet it is constantly pleading poverty. In the name of austerity the education kingpins decide that it is better to retrench hard working, desperately needed teachers rather than fire the lazy bureaucrats in Bhisho.
The Grahamstown District office of the education department does not allow its officials to make phone calls after 11am because it cannot afford to pay its telephone account. These and other cost-saving measures are severely undermining an already under-performing department.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has finally acknowledged that there might be some value in the criticism about the pathetically low matric pass requirements and has agreed to investigate the quality of our education system. Currently under certain circumstances, a mark of only 30% is considered good enough to pass. In other words – if you don’t know most of your work that is fine for us.
Lowering the bar does not help anyone because if you keep on doing it, you will soon be eating dirt. We need to raise bar and make it tough to pass from one grade to the next so that by the time a pupil gets to matric he or she is tough enough to do well without officials manipulating the results to make themselves look good.
The problem is that raising the bar is difficult and out current government does not do anything if it is difficult. In order to improve the South African education system the entire senior education leadership needs to be thrown out and replaced with people who are honest and efficient. Secondly, the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) needs to stop sabotaging the education system. Yes, good teachers require good salaries, but Sadtu does not appear to be the least bit interested in good teaching.
