The gift of language – and a large brain to deliver it – is the reason human beings are the only species of free-living sentient beings capable of passing down the lessons of human civilisation that started in Africa to subsequent generations.
All other species pretty much have to reinvent the wheel, as it were, with every new generation that comes along. They are not capable, as we are, of building on what goes before and of taking innovations to greater heights of cumulative complexity.
Here, as elsewhere, we believe it takes about 12 years of formal schooling to accomplish the task. Since the early 20th century, we have relied largely, as others in industrial societies elsewhere do, on public schools funded by taxpayers to get the job done.
The question is, how well do we do what has to be done?
The pass rate – 70.2 percent – released by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga expresses in percentage terms the proportion of pupils who sat for the National Senior Certificate (NSC), met the subject requirements and obtained an average of 33.3 percent for the Grade 12 exams.
It is an important average figure. That we broke through the 70 percent pass barrier is an indication of a year-long – and likely more – effort put in by pupils, teachers, principals and parents. Success almost always requires preparation and everyone involved should be heartily congratulated for their devotion and achievement.
The past two years have finally seen the reversal of the pass rate, which has been on the decline since the NSC was introduced.
Between 2004 and 2009 the pass rate went down from 70.7 percent to 60.7 percent, a substantial drop.
In 2010 we saw a dramatic and still unexplained increase to 67.8 percent and, by 2011, the figure grew more modestly to break the 70 percent barrier.
This is good, but it is not good enough, for these important reasons:
First, a pass at 33 percent means that a pupil has mastered a third of the material in a field of study. This is as unambitious as it is insulting to the talent of our pupils.
We agree with the quality assessment body, Umalusi, that we must raise the pass barrier to 50 percent in a step-by-step fashion over time.
Second, more pupils must sit for the exams, pass, and pass at a much higher level of achievement. We must do everything in our power to arrest the drop-out rate and therefore reverse the poor “retention rate” in the school system. Of the 1 318 932 pupils who enrolled in Grade 1 in 1999 only 537 543 – 40.7 percent – ended up writing the 2010 exams, a dreadful figure. Performance in 2011 is no different.
Third, we must work hard to increase the number of pupils who qualify for acceptance into university and college. Only 20.2 percent earned degree-, 23.3 percent diploma- and 19.2 percent certificate- entrance to university or college.
About 37.3 percent of those who passed, failed to get into university or college, which is a dreadful waste of talent.
Finally, the number of pupils who pass in science and maths must be ramped up. In 2010, 46 percent passed maths and 66 percent biology. If 40 percent is taken as a pass, then the numbers respectively are 28 percent and 38 percent – unacceptably weak by any measure. The 2011 figures for maths are worse and sciences better, but the pattern persists.
Everyone today recognises that poor science and maths education is probably our biggest challenge.
More and more recognise that though we should certainly blame Bantu education for the criminal impoverishment of education for black pupils for our woeful performance in the 1990s, the argument wears thin 17 years into democracy.
The fact is that the democratic government’s initiative (started under the late Kader Asmal) to improve science and maths teaching by creating special institutions called Dinaledi schools has simply not worked.
A senior consultant who helped set up Dinaledi tells me the Treasury gave the initiative half the money required for success.
In analysing the problem, the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) placed schools into two broad categories in respect of maths and science performance: (1) independent schools and the top quintile of public schools; and (2) the bottom four quintiles of public schools.
The CDE found that maths and science passes at the old Higher Grade or its equivalent levels were heavily concentrated in the first category of schools – independent schools and the top quintile of public schools. It is important to note that the top quintile has a few Dinaledi schools.
The CDE also established that in 2004, 414 schools (6.6 percent of all schools) accounted for 66 percent of passes in Higher Grade (HG) maths.
In 2008, the bottom 75 percent of schools produced only 17 percent of the passes, whereas 6.6 percent of schools produced 50 percent of the passes.
The same goes for science passes at 50 percent or better. The CDE established that the bottom 75 percent of schools accounted for 13 percent of the science passes, while 5.5 percent of schools produced 50 percent.
Put another way, SA relies on about 400 schools for half its maths passes at the 50 percent level, and about 350 schools for half its science passes at the 50 percent level. This trend, more than anything else, will choke our efforts to develop highly skilled individuals in the technical fields our economy so desperately needs to grow and create jobs.
Finally, the CDE found that socio-economic factors associated with schools are strongly correlated with their performance. Notably, Dinaledi schools (partly designed to offset historical imbalances in education) did not achieve significantly better results.
Though some progress has been made, the fact is that some 90 percent of schools are failing to meet the minimum performance standards in maths and science education. The 2011 results for maths and science unfortunately do not change matters.
What will not alter the picture is the impact of the new regulations to cap bonuses and benefits approved by school governing bodies at some fee-paying schools. While we understand the national government’s concern with rising school fees, it would be better to provide more state bursaries to pay for pupils from poor backgrounds than to, unintentionally perhaps, drive good science and maths teachers out of the public school system.
What will also not alter the picture is the shoddy planning for and poor delivery of the new textbooks, part of Motshekga’s much-needed Curriculum Assessment and Policy Statements process. Rather than paying consistent attention to the detail of quality in an organised process of well-orchestrated reform, she tackles the process with unseemly haste.
What would alter the picture is to populate schools with excellent teachers working in stable and well-managed school environments, and supported by education ministries that deliver the curriculum on time and with quality. Bring back retired maths and science teachers. Recruit maths and science teachers from elsewhere. Train more maths and science teachers.
A world of opportunity lies before those pupils who passed – especially those who did well. The lessons of human civilisations must now be put to good use wherever life takes you. Those who did not succeed must, as the saying goes, “try and try again”.
It matters. Without a high-school qualification, the door of opportunity will remain shut.
l Dr Wilmot James is DA shadow minister of basic education.