Congratulations to all those who passed Matric this past weekend!
In very few countries around the world do highschool exam results generate as much of a buzz as they do in South Africa. Unfortunately, much of the attention and showcasing the government has done, masks what is a very serious crisis in this country!
According to the government, 70.2% of South African highschool students passed their exams this year, up from 67.8% last year.
But for all the drama with which these numbers were presented, these numbers misrepresent reality because they only include those students who actually sat to write the exams.
They don’t include those who were held back to keep the stats high or those who’ve dropped out of school.
First, let’s look at the cohort.
In the year 2000, 1 035 192 pupils started school in Grade 1. By the Grade 12 final exams this year, only 496 090 of them showed up to write the finals.
So what happened to the more than half a million students who dropped out of school, disappearing from the system?
Once these “missing students” are included in the figures, the number of pupils who passed highschool this week is actually 70% of the roughly 40% of youth who were still attending school, meaning roughly 35% of highschool age students, actually graduated.
The civil society NGO Equal Education agrees with this basic calculation. They estimate the real highschool graduation rate nationally to be 38% when you consider the dropouts.
A second issue is how unbelievably low the passing rates are.
Professor Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the University of Free State also pointed out in a recent column with The Star, that basically “pupils have to put in a special effort to fail”.
To pass the Senior Certificate examination in this country, a student needs to get 40% in a home language, and two other subjects, and 30% in three subjects, shockingly low when you consider that typical pass rates in OECD countries are in the 60-70% range.
Professor Jansen asks, “What kind of self-respecting nation accepts this level of mediocrity?”
Quality education is the first step to overcoming the inequalities created by apartheid. We at enke believe that the youth need to be better empowered in order for the next generation to be able to create the kind of society they want to see. Finishing education is the first step to achieving that.
But the only way South Africa is going to experience real and positive change, is if the government is fully transparent about the reality of the situation. There is a serious systemic problem facing the youth of this nation.
And that’s your Monday Morning Musing.
2 Comments
i couldnt agree more with you article. Do you thnk the government lowers the required pass rate in order to have good looking stats and fool people? Because lets face it the avarage SA citizen cannot realize what you just wrote. And it is the same in all departments not just the education sytem
Tiyani, I don’t know the details of the pass rate. To be honest, I’ve NEVER heard of 30-40% pass rates in secondary school! And there is certainly an enormous pressure placed on schools to produce good stats, thus the reason many students deemed unlikely to pass are held back in year 11, as Professor Jansen’s article explained.
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