"Madiba's children" failed by their government

Umlazi's Zwelibanzi High School "A" Matriculants

Since a low-point in 1999 when only 46.4% of final-year school leavers (matriculants) passed the department worked hard at improving the numbers.  Not by improving the education system but by ensuring that fewer people wrote the final exam (4 000 fewer wrote this year than last) and also that the exam was made easier.  That worked well to 2004 when a high of 73.2% of matriculants passed.

Now to 2006, and the class of Madiba (so called because they are the first crop of students to have started school after the 1994 democratic transition).  This year students managed a paltry 66.5%.

The 350 000 students who wrote included only 4.8% who passed maths on the higher grade.  Without maths learners stand little chance of gaining entrance to university or taking on higher educational studies in the technical subjects required of a modern worker.  Even more worrying than any of these numbers, though, is the dwindling number of students achieving a sufficient education to allow them to even gain entry to higher-education:  16.2%

It should be a cause for shock and despair regarding the much vaunted "outcomes-based education" system introduced by the state in 1995.  The system was declared as the saviour of modern education.  It has failed, and failed spectacularly.

It is no surprise that the number of private schools in South Africa is blossoming.  There are now 1 098 of them, and their university-level pass-rate was 78.8% with a spectacular 21.4% achieving an "A" aggregate.

Instead of simply forcing state schools to accept more non-paying students, it is time for the Department of Education to adopt the same mechanisms of the private sector and give our children hope for employment and success.