Cape Town – South Africa’s main opposition party on Tuesday accused the country’s education system of failing millions of poor children and described it as a “national tragedy”.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) was speaking following the release of the National Senior Certificate results by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
South Africa’s 2015 matric pass rate stood at 70.7 percent, a drop of five percent compared to the 75.8 percent achieved in 2014.
The DA said the release of the results was a “time for honest reflection and introspection”.
“A candid and objective assessment must acknowledge that our education system is failing millions of poor children in several parts of the country,” DA MP Gavin Davis said. “This is a national tragedy and we cannot shy away from it.”
Aside from the drop in the national pass rate, the party pointed to poorly performing provinces which had shown a “significant decline”, most notably the Eastern Cape at 56.8% (down 8.6%), KwaZulu-Natal at 60.7% (down 9%), and Limpopo at 65.9% (down 7%).
“The picture emerging is of a highly unequal education system,” the DA said. “Two decades after the end of apartheid, a child’s scholastic success is still very much determined by the province they live in and what school they go to.
“For our education system to redress the legacy of apartheid, we need to ensure that all learners receive a quality education.”
Davis pointed to the results of the Western Cape – the province controlled by the DA and the only one of South Africa’s nine provinces not under the control of the African National Congress (ANC) – which achieved a pass rate of 84.7%, the highest in the country and an increase of 2.5% from 2014. It was the only province to have improved their pass rate from the previous year.
“If we are to improve the matric results across the board, we need to look at what the best performing provinces are doing right and what the worst performers are doing wrong,” Davis added. “There is much work to be done but the Western Cape Government has shown that progress is possible.
“Over the coming days and weeks, the DA will be studying the 2015 National Senior Certificate results to determine where and what type of reform is required.”
African News Agency
* Use IOL’s Facebook and Twitter pages to comment on our stories. See links below.