Education lobby group Equal Education (EE) has criticised the country’s "preoccupation" with matric results‚ saying the focus should rather be put on primary school.
Describing Wednesday’s official release of the results by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga as an "annual shindig"‚ the organisation said the pass rate was a "superficial and misleading indicator of public education quality".
Instead‚ the focus should be on Grade R to Grade 3 pupils‚ who are between five-and nine-years-old‚ rather than trying to fix results when pupils are 17 or 18 and in matric.
"Early learning is currently crippled by difficulties‚ including overcrowded classrooms and lack of support for early childhood development and foundation phase [Grade R to Grade 3] teachers. Shockingly‚ there is persistent over-investment in Grade 12‚ when the largest investment is needed in the early school stages.
"EE has repeatedly cautioned against the national preoccupation with the matric pass rate. For one‚ the pass rate reflects only the performance of those learners who managed to stay in school for 12 years‚ and obscures how many dropped out along the way‚" general secretary Tshepo Motsepe said in a statement.
According to a Sunday Times report on December 30‚ the matric results for the class of 2016 are expected to increase by about 1.9%‚ from just over 70% the year before.
But Motsepe said this emphasis on Grade 12 performance was detrimental. He said teachers performed what is known as "teaching the test"‚ a process where pupils are trained to answer specific test questions and not taught broader context and skills.
They also did so-called "gaming"‚ "culling" or "gatekeeping" – which is when schools hold back learners or encourage them to take different subjects in order to improve school pass rates.
"In SA‚ the enormous emphasis on a school’s matric pass rate means schools employ these destructive tactics to boost matric results and avoid being classified as an underperforming school‚" he said.
The real reason for matric underperformance in recent years was because of a lack of investment at the foundation phase level, said EE.
"Most learners who suffer an inadequate foundation phase education are the children of the poor and the working class. Schools which historically served black learners have remained dysfunctional and unable to teach learners how to read‚ write and calculate at the appropriate level.
"To fix what is wrong in matric‚ start at the very beginning: early childhood development‚" said Motsepe.
Under-resourced rural provinces‚ particularly the Eastern Cape‚ KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo‚ continue to bear the brunt of poor matric results.
"In rural provinces … schools have fewer teachers per learner than their urban counterparts and learners often have to walk cruel distances to get to school. All of these factors impact on teaching and learning‚" he said.
Motshekga will release the national results at 6pm on Wednesday.
TMG Digital/Sunday Times
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