Opinion - What are your options if your teenage child has to leave a government or private school and still get a matric?
A friend of mine fell on hard times recently and had to take his daugther out of a private school in Grade 11.
He asked me what the alternatives were if she stayed at home and tried to go it alone.
I realised this must be a situation many families face for different reasons.
Some children can’t take the academic and social stress of high school, some families are continuously travelling or moving around, some have remedial needs, some fall ill and need to work from home, and others have religious or cultural reasons.
I realised I did not know the answer, so here is my account of what I found out, not for home schooling in general, but specifically for getting a matric.
The first big issue is that, if you want a National Senior Certificate (NSC), commonly called the “matric” certificate, then you can’t just get your child to prepare at home and write the matric exam at the nearest exam centre.
It’s not as easy as that.
The NSC is a three-year programme (Grades 10, 11, and 12) and your child has to have passed Grades 10 and 11 to get into Grade 12.
Once your child is in Grade 12, he or she has to first submit portfolios of the year’s work in each subject because there is a year mark as well as an exam mark.
You cannot mark the portfolios - as honest and unbiased as you will be; they need to be submitted for assessment to a certified assessment body.
The problem you have here is that the Department of Basic Education will not allow you to send your child’s portfolio to the nearest school to be marked.
At the barest minimum, you need to register with a private organisation that is accredited to mark the portfolio and other assessments. Organisations like Impaq and Alpha Education offer these services.
Impaq will cost around R10000 to get all the assessment materials needed and to get them marked.
This will enable your child to write the matric exam.
You will have to pay examination fees and assorted other costs. Impaq and Alpha education also offer study guides, workbooks, portfolio books, electronic downloads, videos, facilitator guides for you, a suggested timetable, lesson guidance and explanations.
These extras at Impaq will cost you another R2000. Expect to pay roughly around R15000 to get your child to write an NSC matric through a reputable provider like Impaq.
Educational providers like Impaq and Alpha Education use the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI) as their independent assessment body, but it is also possible to use the Independent Examination Board (IEB) as an option.
Before I go into how you can use the IEB, allow me to explain what SACAI and the IEB are.
Both are private assessment bodies that are allowed to set and mark exams for the NSC independently of the Department of Basic Education.
Both offer distance education options.
The IEB is older than SACAI, has more perceived status and is more expensive, but both will do the job of getting your child a matric certificate from Umalusi (our national quality council for education in schools).
Both the IEB and SACAI know that this private distance market for the NSC is massive and distinctly cater for it.
Impaq and Alpha Education use SACAI as their independent assessment body, Brainline and Hanjeld Christian Online use the IEB.
Brainline has a seven-subject package for Grade 12 that will cost you almost R23000 and you will have to pay an extra R6000 IEB examination fee as well as extra accommodation and practical fees, with a total cost to you of around R30000.
For that, you get a well-structured curriculum and IEB administered NSC - like most of the private schools in South Africa.
As a rule of thumb, an IEB distance provider comes in at double the price of a SACAI distance provider.
If you prefer to write the matric exam through the Department of Basic Education, rather than the IEB or SACAI, then you can enrol your child in a correspondence college like Intec or Damelin Correspondence College.
Intec or Damelin will provide the curriculum, set and mark the continuous assessments and then your child will write the DBE matric examination.
One of the advantages of Intec and Damelin is that they will offer you massive choices in subjects, ranging from academic to technical and vocational, as well as flexible study options.
What happens if you don’t want a South African quality controlled matric certificate but something more international?
I want to describe two options, both of which offer the massive advantage of no school-based assessments.
That’s right; with neither do you have the issue of trying to get your child’s portfolio marked by some independent organisation.
It’s all about the exam - pass it and you get the certificate.
The first option is the high-status, high-quality option of Cambridge.
You might already know that some private schools in South Africa choose to write a Cambridge matric rather than the IEB or DBE matric.
It’s at the Advanced Subsidiary (AS) Level and takes around two years to complete.
Five subjects needed to be taken.
The curriculum is highly rated across the world because of its emphasis on deep engagement.
Prices per subject exam vary but average around R1500.
You will then have to purchase all the textbooks and learning material.
Unless your child is exceptionally gifted, it is hard to pass the Cambridge AS levels without support, and this often comes at a premium.
Clonard distance education, for example, will offer you extended support, materials, continuous assessment of assignments, internal exam practice, and group Skype tutoring calls at just over R6000 a subject.
The second option is the General Equivalency Diploma.
It is a high school equivalence test that started in the US to provide students with a second chance to get their matric.
The test takes around seven hours to complete and consists of four subjects (maths, science, social studies and language arts-writing and reading).
If you would like online classes and materials to help prepare your child for the General Equivalency Diploma test, then there are a number of options (like onlineGED.co.za or passged.co.za) that cost around R2000 a year for full access to the materials and South African specific support and advice.
You still have to write the test at a recognised test centre and each test costs $60, so you are in for $240 or around R3000.
The General Equivalency Diploma does not have the status or the intellectual depth of Cambridge, but if you are looking for a simple and cheap way for your child to exit school with a matric level qualification, then it will work.
The South African Qualifications Authority has evaluated the General Equivalency Diploma at the NSC level, and most universities in South Africa accept it as a matric equivalent, although your child might have to fill in extra forms and do extra entrance requirements.
These are some of the basic options you have if your child leaves the formal school environment half way through high school.
I have not dealt with religious options and have not entered into the debates around de-schooling and whether home schooling is better than traditional schools.
Life has ways of making families ask questions and taking options they would not have contemplated before, and it helps to know what the options are.
I don’t think I have discussed all options and if you feel I have missed out on other viable ways to complete a matric, or got some of the details incorrect, then please write to me: [email protected]