SOUTH AFRICA: Falling final year pass rate sign of a deeper malaise

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

JOHANNESBURG, 13 Jan 2006 (IRIN) - The commotion about last year's dismal matric results has subsided, but experts warn that merely focusing on final year pass rates hides the deeper problems facing South Africa's education system.

After a three percent drop in each of the last three years, the 2005 pass rate hit 68.3 percent. Although cause for concern, staggering dropout rates and the declining quality and quantity of educators point to a larger crisis.

"The point is that the matric [final school year] exam continues to be a high-stakes exam, and doesn't tell you much about the health of the education system. Only assessing the three percent differential that the minister of education justifies by saying the exams have gotten tougher is not enough," a senior researcher in the Education Policy Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand, Salim Vally, told IRIN.

Frans Cronje of the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) estimated that enrolment in the school system averaged one million pupils per grade from grade 1 to grade 10, but then suddenly dropped by half between grade 10 and grade 12, the exit year.

"Of the 508,363 pupils who wrote matric in 2005, 347,184 or 68 percent passed their exams. When calculated as a proportion of the 2003 grade 10 class, only 32 percent of pupils successfully graduated from the school system," Cronje pointed out.

Explaining the whereabouts of the "missing" 587,851 pupils is trickier. "Some may have been absorbed into the Further Education and Training college system, which has seen its enrolment figures quadruple since 1994 to over 400,000 students. Poverty and HIV/AIDS may account for some attrition, but not to an extent that explains such a rapid decline in pupils between grade 10 and grade 12," Cronje maintained.

Shireen Motala, Director of the Education Policy Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand, speculated that pupils' motivation to continue their education might be weakened by perceptions of poor prospects in the job market and limited possibilities of continuing their education at tertiary level.

South Africa is saddled with an official unemployment rate of around 26 percent. However, the department of labour uses a strict definition of "unemployed", which independent researchers have disputed, and some have put the general unemployment figure as high as 40 percent.

"The big worries are the dwindling amount [of pupils] going on to grade 11 and 12, and the decline in the amount that go to university or can find work in the job market," Motala told IRIN. "Even if they pass, what happens afterwards?"

Vally used the phrase "push-out" as opposed to "drop-out" to describe what happened when a child abandoned the education system, saying it reflected a broader set of problems, such as poverty, illness or, on a more psychological level, the idea that education would not necessarily improve their chances of finding employment.

According to Vally there are "tens of thousands of people that pass their exams but are unable to get jobs - pupils see the example of those that haven't been able to find work for ten years - their motivation goes, and they resign themselves".

An underlying cause is the poor linkage between the education system and the job market. A recent investment-climate survey, jointly conducted by the department of trade and industry and the World Bank, identified "lack of skills as an obstacle towards the country's economic growth".

The government launched the Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) initiative in 2000, after skills development had been identified as a key priority. All employers in the country pay training levies and SETA is responsible for disbursements to trainees. Businesses sending employees for training can also claim against the cost.

Each separate economic sector has a SETA, which is responsible for developing and implementing a skills development plan, ensuring quality control and paying out development grants.

But the SETA initiative has come under fire for slow delivery. "There is huge bureaucracy at the SETAs and their plans are flawed and short-term - they deal largely with the formal sector and all training is directed at the market, neglecting training focused on community needs," Vally said.

According to Motola, "the SETA is in need of proper appraisal to determine whether their skills development programmes are leading to more jobs".

SETAs do not specifically cater for matriculants. Government employment initiatives aimed at grade 12 graduates "are few and far between, and that is one of the problems," Vally commented. "There are some public learning centres, but these are completely dysfunctional - they don't have the necessary materials, educators are underpaid and they are always the first to go when there is a financial squeeze."

Another key area that needs to be addressed is the quality of teachers. "A lot of teachers were trained during the apartheid years, so they themselves received poor education," Motola remarked.

"The education system needs a long-term plan. Five years ago a number of teacher [training] colleges were closed down following a period of [teacher] retrenchment, when many teachers left the system after being offered severance packages," Motola noted.

The lack of teachers has led to sometimes huge class numbers and an accompanying decline in teaching quality.

[ENDS]