Finally, the Worthless Matric ‘Inquisition’ Begins
Teachers have manipulated the education system for their own needs.
The deterioration of education in South Africa has been a non-stop topic for parents, business, government critics and staff within the education system itself.
Apartheid education for white children was considered one of the finest government learning systems in the world. Unfortunately, the aftermath of inequality found equality in a ‘dumbing down’ of education for all. Rather than correct itself over the past decade and a half, the education system has reeled from disaster to disaster, from leaders without leadership abilities to over-packed classrooms and the unavailability of available school books.
Deserving specific mention are the misbehaving teachers in the unions, particularly SADTU (South African Democratic Teachers’ Union) with its over a quarter million members. Everyone will agree that teachers have rights but their value is diminished by the fact that they hold the record for the most strike days in South Africa. Teachers, as a group via their actions, seem to have become selfish politicians instead of nurturers of the future.
South Africa is no closer to mending the broken education system, especially with regards fixing the people problem, but there has been, at least, an arse-about-face intent to address the worthless Matric pass standards.
The National Senior Certificate (NSC) only requires that a learner achieve 30% or more in 3 subjects and 40% or more in another 3 subjects. You can fail your seventh subject (so long as it’s not your home language – that requires 40%).
That immoral low achievement is emulated with higher education whose ‘expectations’ are:
In order to qualify for entry into further study at the Diploma level, a learner must pass the NSC as follows:
- One official language at home language level at 40%.
- 3 other subjects at 40%.
- 2 subjects at 30%.
In order to qualify for entry into further study at the Bachelor Degree level, a learner must pass the NSC as follows:
- One official language at home language level at 40% or more.
- 4 subjects from the designated list of subjects at 50% or more.
- 2 subjects at a minimum of 30%.
[important]Despite half of children starting Grade 1 dropping out before Grade 12, another 26% failed their Matric in 2012. That that was considered an improvement! totally supported the low expectations of educators. This past December, the Mail & Guardian reported that “the national assessment results showed that grade nine pupils scored a shocking maths average of 13%”. The University dropout rate in the 1st year is estimated at 50%. The lack of standards is infectious when you consider policemen without driver’s licences and how many politicians are not qualified for their jobs (beyond the public’s’ right to vote no matter how uneducated and uncaringly uninformed they are). [/important]
Its inadequacy is so frustrating and maddening that instead of me simply stating, as i’d intended, that the standards of the Matric are to finally be investigated, i’ve taken 480 words to get to the point.
Despite committees having being established last year, they’re only now getting into gear to investigate the NSC. And, according to Education Minister Angie Motshekga, we’ll have to wait until at least February 2014 for those results which means that another year of miseducation is guaranteed.
PS: Please don’t mistake this as an argument against all teachers. There are obviously wonderful educators all around our country, pulling off miracles because they care. This is about the system, as a whole, and the incompetent government behind it.
I think the problem is the percentage increase, so the guy at the bottom, earning R4000 per month gets say R400 increase, but the guy near the top earns R100,000 per month they now get R10,000 more. They both have families, need to eat, pay for power etc.
I say give everyone the same annual increase of say R1000 – so the guy at the bottom will be very happy, and the guys at the top will not be. We see who strikes then!
Yes, an important point. Salaries range from R7000 to R20 000 per month for the regular teachers who’ve served less than 9 years. The upper echelon will be much higher. The problem is that public service in South Africa looks more like corporate service every day i.e. the discrepancy between salaries at the bottom and top is increasing. And what if the people at the top have the most input into getting a strike to happen? Is it then for the teachers as a body or for their own gain.
So, 9 years teaching, one cannot buy the cheapest suburban house at say R1mil. The gap is getting wider, and I am not surprised that there are strikes.
What would happen if income was performance based – results determine the salary scale – or penalties for poor pass rate, bonus for good results……… dream on
Wrong thinking. The majority of SA cannot and do not think of a 1million bond. People must downscale so as to fit into real economics and not fantasy economics. They must take smaller jobs if it means they can walk or catch public transport to get to there. They should move to poorer areas or get a group of people together to buy a piece of land where they build cottages, not houses with pools and double garages. Reality and being debt free must be prerogative. To be able to do what i do, i downsized and pay R1000 rent. I did what i had to do. So must everyone.
Regards performance based bonuses, i believe in that for all lines of employment. But, yes, it will never happen because unions make more money from lazy and insufficiently educated workers than they do from the productive.
PS: Check out http://www.knysnaschools.co.za/is-south-african-school-education-beyond-hope.
Mike, I think you are a bit harsh on the teachers right to strike. The strike lasted long because the department refused to settle on higher pay. Had the salaries increased fairly, there would have been no strike, so who’s fault is it?
Having said that, the idea of decent pay should be coupled with good quality service. This is where the problem is, if a teacher is underperforming, they should be replaced, (labour laws need to change) problem is that the standard is now so low that qualified teachers often dont know the syllabus, having passed with 30% and 40% themselves.
Thanks for your input, Keith.
I’m not looking at one strike but the many that have plagued our country. The most to blame for poor standards are the teachers themselves. If anything, they should have booted bad teachers in the beginning or gone on strike early on for that very reason. Like all organizations, the rot is allowed from within. Our government may be awful but we can’t use them as an easy, we-have-no-blame excuse. What we are prepared to do is the most important.
As for salaries, if i had my way teachers who achieve high standards would be amongst the most well paid in our country but that has to be balanced with vocation, a desire to commit one self to work that one, primarily, loves.
Financially, our country is in deep, bloody red – credit so rules our lives that we revolve our decisions and strikes around our debt. Life continually gets worse but, disproportionately, government employees keep demanding higher salaries. There needs to be a drive for living smaller lives with what we need rather than what we want. Until then, in comparison, teachers, policemen and municipal workers are amongst the highest paid in my town of Knysna…they certainly earn far more than me.