Cape Town - The “progression system” that allows pupils who have failed to be promoted to the next grade may be scrapped in coming years as the Western Cape Education Department and the Department of Basic Education enter into talks.
On Thursday a Cape Town high school slammed the provincial education department for imposing the progression system,
saying it had “disastrous” effects on pupils and teachers.
In a letter, the governing body and staff of Spine Road High School wrote about their concerns about the system, especially because it directly influenced the morale of teachers and “destroyed the value of hard work (which) ensures success” as taught to pupils.
The school said: “The progressing of pupils who fail to make the required criteria to pass makes a mockery of the standards we wish to entrench in our schools. These pupils are creating enormous challenges for our schools, especially for our matric teachers.”
The system was also doing a disservice to pupils who have a small chance of passing the matric examination. “If they do fail in matric, they will only qualify for a Grade 9 certificate. This progression strategy only really affects poor schools, the economically marginalised. We are tired of our children being used as political pawns to satisfy statistics.”
The school said it was forced by the provincial department to promote 48 pupils in Grade 11 last year who had “failed dismally”.
“We requested, through our circuit manager in January, for support, but no support has been forthcoming. How do we give support to a pupils who are not interested or motivated to pass? They refuse to attend extra classes because they are relying on the department to progress them. The department has created this monster and is expecting our under-resourced and overworked teachers to remedy the situation.”
Jessica Shelver, the spokeswoman for Education MEC Debbie Schäfer, said the progression system was a national policy that the provincial department was not in favour of since it was implemented in 2013.
“We are not in favour of the progression system for many reasons, and are therefore looking at various possibilities to address them,” she said.
But she said an inter-governmental process had to take place before any meaningful change would be made.
Shelver said Schäfer and the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, were in discussions regarding the system. As a result, Shelver said Schafer would be formally writing to Motshekga next week.
“We have discovered that the progression policy can lead to perverse incentives for pupils who fail. It is claimed that many pupils who fail a grade do not put in any effort thereafter because they know they cannot be held back in the phase. This aspect is not good for education, the teachers or the pupils,” she said.
Cape Argus