The national senior certificate (NSC) results were released this past week and since then this has been the topic of great national interest with newspapers affording the story front-page coverage. Most of the coverage has been critical without offering any real solutions while other media have been constructive in their approach.Before the NSC results were announced, one could easily have predicted a decline in the 2009 pass rate from the previous year, based purely on the trend that has emerged over the past five years . Indeed this year’s pass rate of 60.7% compared to 62.7% in 2008 remained true to this now established downward trend. Interestingly, South Africa saw a rise in the pass rate between 1994 and the early part of this decade and for at least the past five years the total NSC pass rate has been showing a steady but certain decline. This year’s figures are even more alarming when viewed from the perspective of the failure rate, which means that 39.3% of those learners who wrote the NSC exams in 2009 actually failed. In absolute number terms, the implication is that of the 580,577 learners who wrote their NSC exams, a staggering 228,168 will either have to repeat the year or write supplementary examinations in an attempt to improve on their 2009 marks. For me, this downward trend seems to point towards either a drop in the general quality of either the learners sitting for the NSC exams or the decline in the quality of teachers or perhaps both. In a previous blog (SA Needs an Education Propostion) I highlighted a need for the South African government to devise a sound long-term education proposition, this proposition is now more urgent than ever. A critical point that must be mentioned is that the NSC results merely serve as a symptom of the overall sickness which the basic education system is suffering from and in the short term government ought to come up with a cure for this education sickness. In the long, however what is really needed is a preventative measure against the poor results sickness, which measures must involve a complete overhaul of the education system across all levels. I’ve always advocated for innovation when it comes to problem solving and our education system needs some serious innovations if progress is to be made. Some of the things I think government ought to consider doing to get the country out of the education crisis include the following:
Inculcating a culture, within families and society in general, that places higher value on education. This would necessarily require for government to create some sort of a REWARDS SYSTEM. Imagine if all leaners received government financial assistance towards their higher education should they attaint a specified mark by subject, regardless of their social background. Imagine also if teachers and Head Master received some incentive (financial or otherwise) for attaining a specified pass rate in their school;
An extensive teacher training and re-training programme. We now live in an information technology age where information is ubiquitous and new teachers that are being trained must be properly equipped to effectively leverage the benefits of the information age. Qualities teachers must be continuously retrained on different and new and emerging teaching methods to maximise learner outcomes. Teacher must keep up lest they be rendered redundant by the Internet;
Improvement of schooling facilities. This means making sure that schools are safe and secure and that each school has adequate access to running water and electricity. Furthermore government ought to invest more in ICT. Kids who want to be scientists need to do experiments from an early age, so Bunsen burners, Petri dishes are a must at every school;
While I realise that for most parents their kids’ performance at school is a daily challenge, as a country we seem to place greater emphasis on performance largely at the end of the year. Imagine therefore if government could somehow release high level performance results for current matriculants every quarter and make education a quarterly as opposed to an annual talking-point. In the short-term this would serve as artificial external pressure on parents, learners and teachers to improve on their performance thereby put education on the national agenda throughout the year. Our education system is in crisis and the citizens are looking towards government must show the political will to make improvements and for the sake of our children and our children’s children future, government cannot and must not disappoint.
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