Young Communist League demands free education

By 2008, no pupil will pay a cent to get to a public school and pupils will no longer be taught under trees.

That is if all goes according to the wishes of the Young Communist League of South Africa (YCL).

“Our country has enough resources for this to become a reality. It is a question of putting priorities right, said YCL national secretary Buti Manamela.

“There are financial resources that are being wasted in mega infrastructures, such as Gautrain, Coega and the Dube Trade port, that have no impact on the poor and destitute.”

In addition the league is calling for a homogeneous uniform in schools across the country.
“The uniform standardisation will boost local textile industry and ensure affordability,” Manamela said.

He said there was a crisis in education, and vowed his organisation would not budge until every child had access to free education.

More emphasis ought to be put on improving public schools, and teachers’ salaries were an insult and disrespectful. That was why some headed for the private sector.

The young Reds will ask for a meeting with Education Minister Naledi Pandor to discuss the way forward.

Zim teachers are already here

January 12 2007 at 10:38AM

South African teachers should not feel threatened by Education Minister Naledi Pandor wanting trained Zimbabweans to fill some of the vacant posts in mathematics and science.

This is according to Duncan Hindle, the director-general at the department of education. He was at pains to note that any move to recruit Zimbabwean teachers was not about displacing South Africans.

"One of the things I want to put straight is that we are not bringing Zimbabweans into the country, because in many cases they are already here," he argued.

According to the government estimates, there are about 10 000 fully trained Zimbabwean teachers living in this country, but not working in their field of expertise. Among them are about 4 000 qualified maths and science teachers.

"So why would we bypass quality (Zimbabwean) teachers if we need them ourselves?" asked Hindle, before cautioning: "Of course it goes without saying that any vacant jobs would be offered to a South African first."

In 2006, Pandor announced plans to recruit Indian experts at district level, and according to Hindle, the first of these could be in place by as early as March or April 2007.

The task of educating 12 million young South Africans is not one Hindle takes lightly. Yet he is optimistic that by the time Pandor's term in office comes to a close in 2009, great inroads will have been made.

The central education budget of R90-billion is the biggest single spend in the government. That has gone a long way in constructing 17 000 new classrooms over the past two years.

According to Hindle's estimates, 40 000 new classrooms are required to meet current needs - a goal he would like to see the department achieve within three years from now.

In 2007, the target of providing free education to five million children was met under the "no fees" policy.

"That's 40 percent of all learners," Hindle noted. And within about three years from now, we would like to hit the 50 percent mark."

While that might be comforting news to many, what about those who are still struggling to find a school place, fee-paying or otherwise, this week?

Late registration, coupled with a 10 percent increase in the overall student population, has left many schools stretched beyond capacity.

But Hindle says that the department can provide education for everyone. "In the next couple of days we should have every child in a school, and in a classroom, and not under a tree, or anything archaic like that."

DA wary of new Eastern Cape education MEC

January 16, 2007, 17:15

The Democratic Alliance (DA) says John Makgato, the new Eastern Cape education MEC, has been thrown in the deep end as he has no background in education. Tomorrow is back to school for coastal provinces. Naledi Pandor, the education minister, will visit the Eastern Cape.

Since 1994 the province has had seven education MECs and a hoad of other administrative problems. Some schools are still experiencing the problem of late delivery of stationery.

The DA has criticised Makgato’s appointment. “ Nosimo Balindlela, the premier did not apply her mind right. Having been an education MEC herself, she should have known what quality of person should be appointed at that post. She did not do that. She should have looked for someone with expertise in education,” said Donald Smiles, the DA education spokesperson in the Eastern Cape.

Due to bungling in the nutrition programme, learners will go hungry as the programme will only start next month. This is because of the failed community-based school nutrition programme spearheaded by Mkhangeli Matomela, the former education MEC. A forensic report has revealed that about R100 million was lost through this initiative.

The report has been tabled and recommends that contracts of the cooperatives providing food be cancelled. So far five senior education department officials have been suspended.

The Eastern Cape has a vacancy rate of 400 posts. Opposition parties said this is one of the factors crippling education in the province and something needs to be done urgently to change this.

Zimbabwe Govt Awaits SA Move On Zim Teachers

January 18, 2007

THE government says it will closely watch moves by South Africa to recruit Zimbabwean science and mathematics teachers before it can respond.

"There is no country in the world which can just say take all these teachers, especially science and maths teachers, who are in demand. We will however wait for South Africa to make a formal request then we can respond accordingly. So far no communication has taken place," the Deputy Minister of Education, Sport and Culture, Isaiah Shumba said in an interview.

The minister said Zimbabwe cannot afford to continue training professionals for other countries.

"It is a brain drain and we cannot afford to continue like this. Movements are not strange, it's common for people to seek greener pastures, they go to China, Australia, South Africa and many other countries. It's a pattern. But I don't see an easy way of stopping them because in any case they will move," said Shumba.

"We are however trying to improve their working conditions since we would also like to retain this critical manpower," he said.

The South African government has already made it clear that it wants to recruit Zimbabwean teachers to boost its professional base in the two subjects, a move expected to improve pass rates.

The South African Education Minister, Naledi Pandor, told the South African press last week of the intended move.

This attracted a barrage of criticism from workers' unions in South Africa, accusing the country of exploiting the situation in Zimbabwe by offering higher salaries and better working conditions.

The government is believed to be mulling plans to bar migrating teachers from rejoining the service if they consider coming back home.

But Shumba denied this. "I don't think it is government policy but we would encourage them to stay and help develop the education of the country."

According to the Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), Zimbabwe lost 4 000 teachers to neighbouring countries such as South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia in 2005 alone. An estimated 4 800 teachers left the country last year.

Many Zimbabwean teachers have been leaving the country in search of better salaries and working conditions. Teachers are among a band of poorly paid professionals in Zimbabwe earning salaries below the poverty datum line.

PTUZ president, Raymond Majongwe, said government must put its act together and stop the flight of teachers.

"We sympathise with the teachers, circumstances are forcing them to go out. But we can not celebrate, all we can do is put pressure on government to improve conditions of service," said Majongwe.

Call to discuss Afrikaans schooling

The future of Afrikaans schooling needs to be discussed urgently, the Freedom Front Plus said yesterday.

In a statement calling for a meeting on the issue with the Education Minister Naledi Pandor, FF Plus youth leader Cornelius Jansen van Rensburg said national conciliation demanded government pay more attention to multi-lingualism. “Until now, the government has merely tried to appease the Afrikaans community with the assurance that the Constitution guarantees mother-tongue education, and that the government would not infringe upon this right.

“Just after the ANC came to power, English-speaking pupils were purposefully enrolled in Afrikaans schools. Feasibility was not an issue at the time.

“Now that the situation has been reversed, schools which had previously been Afrikaans have now unilaterally become English schools,” he said.

Children still learning under trees

January 19 2007 at 10:46AM

Children from the province's poorest regions are still learning under trees despite assurances from the president and the education department since 2005 that the problem would be eradicated soon.

Pupils from grades one, two and four were found learning under trees in the sweltering heat when The Mercury visited Landulwazi Primary School in the rural region of Msinga, north-west of Greytown, on Thursday.

In April 2005, education minister Naledi Pandor gave KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo Province two months to come up with a plan to find alternative accommodation for pupils being taught under trees.

The provincial infrastructure budget for 2005/06 was realigned to ensure that cases in which pupils were being taught outdoors were prioritised, according to Pandor's instructions.


Media reports early last year highlighted the poor condition of Landulwazi Primary and Education Superintendent-General Cassius Lubisi responded that eight new classrooms and eight new toilets would be built. However, no construction has taken place.

On Thursday, older pupils at Landulwazi were crammed into four classrooms, one of which was dilapidated, with two classes and two teachers occupying each room. Some pupils sat on the floor.

In one classroom two teachers were conducting history and mathematics lessons simultaneously while trying not to disrupt each other.

The principal has no office - she also conducts her work under the trees, using a wooden bench as her desk.

Learning outdoors leaves the pupils at the mercy of the elements. Tests and exams are often cancelled because of inclement weather.

It also appears that the education department did not tell the school, which has about 450 pupils, that it had been designated a no-fee school and did not have to collect its annual R30 school fee from pupils.

Education MEC Ina Cronje said this week that the schools in the province with the worst figures for income per household, unemployment rates and levels of education came from the Msinga Municipality, within the Umzinyathi district. All schools in the area were no-fee schools, she said. The region's education and income levels were dismal, with a 23,85 percent literacy level, R2 283,89 average yearly income and a dependency ratio of 89 people per household, said department spokesperson Christi Naude.

The Mercury caught up with Pandor, who was visiting Somashi High School, a few kilometres away, to donate 20 computers and evaluate its state of readiness. She said she was unaware of the situation at Landulwazi.

The problems brought to her attention were the drug and alcohol abuse among pupils in the Msinga area and the low literacy levels.

According to Pandor, the lack of school infrastructure countrywide was because of rains that had caused old buildings to crumble and left pupils without classrooms.

Lubisi repeated this, saying that the "very complex issue of schools under trees was being dealt with".

"Each time there is a natural disaster, there is a possibility that weak structures are washed away."

When confronted with the Landulwazi Primary School case, Lubisi said a sharp increase in pupil numbers had probably caused the lack of classroom space and that there were other schools in the area standing nearly empty.

The Umkhanyakhude Municipality in the north of the province had far worse infrastructure problems and poverty, he said.

Landulwazi Primary would probably receive more classrooms in the 2007/08 infrastructure plan, he said.

Minister in the dark on graphic sex education

Schoolchildren in the Eastern Cape are allegedly being very graphically taught how to wear condoms during the Life Orientation programme.

The Citizen has been informed that instead of emphasising abstinence, primary and high school children are taught in class how to use condoms.

An Eastern Cape Life Orientation teacher who did not want to be named said, “I don’t know whether I sound old-fashioned or not, but I don’t think it is acceptable to teach children to use condoms and be faithful to their partners at school.”

The source said teaching children about the dangers of HIV/Aids and its prevention was acceptable, but being explicit on sex was not an option.

Minister of Education Naledi Pandor’s spokesman, Lunga Ngqengelele, said: “I cannot deny or confirm that children are taught to wear condoms in schools.

“But the Minister has emphasised condoms cannot be distributed in schools, and children should not experiment in sexual activities.”

But Ngqengelele said: “If they are sexually active they should use condoms and be faithful.”

Opening Pandor(a)'s box

Will 2006 go down in the history of South African education as the year in which the national government tried to wriggle out of responsibility for what is going on in our schools?

The question is provoked by Minister of Education Naledi Pandor’s curiously evasive performance when she released the matric results on Thursday last week. In particular, two major features of her televised address helped to create the impression that the national Education Department is a largely helpless (and hapless) observer of a situation that is beyond its control.

In the first place, she delivered varying degrees of ministerial rebuke to parents, teachers, school districts and provincial education departments for results that recorded a decline in the overall pass rate for the third year in a row. And secondly, having spent most of her speech analysing what the matric results tell us, she mysteriously concluded that doing so provides “a poor means of analysing our system. One point in a year cannot be used to assess the whole system of schooling”.

On this second point, we should recall where Pandor’s argument comes from. Her predecessor, Kader Asmal, presided for five years over ludicrously implausible year-on-year increases in the matric pass rate, from 48,9% in 1999 to a gobsmacking high of 73,2% in 2003. His claims, cruder and more strident with every passing year, were that these vaulting increases showed the robustly growing health of the post-1994 government’s school system.

Initially, only a few dissidents pointed out that brutal tactics such as preventing borderline pupils from writing matric, or forcing them to take subjects on the standard grade, had far more to do with the soaring pass rate than did real educational achievement. But by 2003 minority dissidence had swelled to an unprecedented crescendo of public scepticism; perhaps not coincidentally, Asmal received the axe shortly thereafter.

Pandor has therefore precisely misapplied the originally dissident argument. It is not that matric results provide a poor means of analysing the system: they do so only if we make claims for the results that are not supported by evidence from elsewhere in the system. And from that point of view, the very detail that has caused so much public anguish and angry denunciation over the past 10 days -- a 1,7% drop in passes to 66,6% -- could just as well be read as a necessary, if painful, return to something closer to reality after the artificial inflations of the Asmal years.

After all, indicators other than matric pass rates continue to point to extremely low levels of educational achievement. International benchmarking, for instance, regularly assesses numeracy and literacy levels among our lower school grades as well below average.

This point brings us to Pandor’s diagnoses of why our system is faltering. She is surely correct to highlight provinces, school districts, teachers and parents; no one disagrees that what constitutes the school experience is multi-determined and so, very complex.

But two of the minister’s other criticisms of the system’s performance serve to raise questions about the extent to which the national government is indeed playing its part. Illustrating her contention that districts need to provide better support to schools she observed that the Namakwa district in the Northern Cape has merely 20 secondary schools to oversee, while the Capricorn district in Limpopo has a staggering 362.

It is dismaying, however, 12 years into our democratic dispensation, to hear a national education minister produce this figure with an air of discovery. School districts do not come about via acts of God: government officials draw lines on a map. And for years educationists have been sounding alarms about the functioning of districts, usually to deafening government silence.

The second example concerns the wretchedly low 2006 pass rates in higher grade maths and science -- 4,8% and 5,6% respectively. Rather wanly, Pandor commented that “we will have to pay much closer attention to performance in these subjects”.

But what “attention” exactly has the national government been paying for 10 years now regarding these subjects? Since 1997 the pass rate in maths has never exceeded 5,3%; in science over the same period the highest pass rate was a paltry 5,9%. After all, “national [government] is responsible for policy development, monitoring and support to ensure we achieve desired outcomes,” Pandor observed; yet what has its monitoring over 10 years in these two areas achieved?

The broad point is that, for years before Pandor assumed office, but also since then, the national government has consistently missed key chances to intervene effectively where it can most make a difference. Three instances are germane here. All educationists agree that children who receive well-supported pre-schooling programmes thrive when they get to school; yet the budget for this -- namely, early childhood development -- remains a derisory 1% of education spending. As a result, many poor children, who most need such programmes cannot be accommodated.

Equally, for pupils whom the school system has failed, adult education programmes should in theory be an option if they are not allowed to repeat matric, yet the budget for adult education remains at about 1%. Here too it is mainly poor pupils who are affected and so need this option, so why does this area remain such a low government priority?

Thirdly, the government last year missed a major opportunity to stem the growing losses in the teaching workforce when it allocated financing for only 1 400 teaching bursaries. The inadequacy of this is stark when one contemplates the figures: about 20 000 teachers leave the profession annually, yet universities produce only about 6 000 new teachers every year.

One might sympathise with Pandor’s desire, expressed last Thursday, to reduce what she called the “hype” of the announcement of matric results and to do away with the TV coverage. But even if that happens, she will still need to show us how the national minister intends to assume accountability for what happens in our schools.

Matrics depressed about future in SA

A national counselling centre says a large portion of an average 200 calls a day have come from depressed matriculants in the Western Cape, despite the province's 83,7 percent pass rate.

The South African Depression and Anxiety Group (Sadag) has been inundated with calls from matriculants who failed their exams or, having passed, were concerned about their futures.

Janine Shamos, senior counsellor and trainer at Sadag, said the phone calls had eased up recently but they were ringing off the hook last Thursday and Friday, when the results were released.

She said it was difficult to determine exactly how many calls had come from the Western Cape.

"There was an incredible increase in the number of calls we received," she said.

"We got a lot of calls from the Western Cape and are still receiving calls from pupils who have passed but are struggling to cope with the stress of what to do with their lives."

She said it was the first time that so many calls had been received at this time of year and that calls had come from a diverse spectrum of teenagers from rural, urban, wealthy and poorer communities.

Shamos encouraged parents to speak to their children.

The centre will run a programme at schools this year to teach youngsters coping skills.

"Children are not prepared to handle stress, and they don't know how to study properly," she said.

Lifeline counsellors said the organisation had received quite a few education-related calls from parents regarding their children's futures but |not that many from matriculants.

Education Minister Naledi Pandor has revealed her dissatisfaction with the "hype" around the results announcement at this time of year.

She said it was time the country aligned itself with international practice, and allowed for the results statement to be based on published school achievements and the conclusions of the quality assuring body.

A total of 39 832 candidates in the province wrote the full matric examinations this year.

About 2 290 achieved distinctions - 79 more than last year. Merit passes were one less than last year.

A total of 10 589 candidates received endorsements, 195 more than in 2005.

Endorsements enable candidates to register to study at universities and technikons.

Scary trend in Matric results

While congratulations are due to all those young people who passed their matric, the declining pass rate is of grave concern and shows that the Education Department is failing the youth of this country and its future economic prospects.

This year's matric pass rate is a mere 66.6% - a decline of 1.7% from 2005 - which means that a third of those who wrote the matric exams failed the core test of their schooling.

In KwaZulu-Natal the situation is even worse, with a pass rate that has dropped from 70.5% in 2005 to 65.7% this year.

The scary fact is the education system is failing to supply South Africa's youth with the necessary tools to graduate from secondary to tertiary education or from schools into the market place.

What makes it worse is that this is the third year in a row that the results have declined, on top of which the number of learners who received exemptions and the number who passed matric maths and science on Higher Grade also dropped.

Minister of Education Naledi Pandor's explanation, that schools are inadequately resourced and funded is quite correct, but she cannot hide behind these factors without a comprehensive plan to turn the declining pass rates dramatically around.

What is abundantly clear is that there is something seriously amiss with education in this country and a cohesive plan needs to be devised urgently to put matters right

One interesting facet of the results is the fact that girls in KZN outperformed their male counterparts and received more university entrance exemptions. This could mean that the work place could receive a far greater number of women in the years to come, as girls swept the boards in business economics, economics and travel.

This also shows that girls, particularly in the rural areas, have greater access to the schooling system and are making good use of the opportunities provided despite the lack of resources so often found in rural schools.

Matric pass rate down by 2%

The national matric pass rate dropped almost two per cent this year, with the blame being put on absenteeism, bad management and lack of infrastructure at schools.

The government also expressed concern that pupils weren‘t scoring high enough to further their education.

Figures released yesterday showed that the Eastern Cape‘s low pass rate was slightly up on last year, while the Southern Cape followed the national trend with a marginal decrease.

The Eastern Cape‘s 2,6% improvement raised the pass rate to 59,3%, but education authorities made it clear that they were far from happy with the results and have vowed to tackle critical areas of concern.

The education department says it has already initiated intervention projects.

In the Southern Cape, there was a slight drop in the pass rate from 85,9% in 2005 to 84,7%.

Nationally, the number of full- time pupils who wrote this year‘s matric exam was the highest yet, but the government is worried about a drop in the total of those scoring high enough to enter universities and other tertiary education institutions.

“More hard, focused and diagnostically accurate work is needed to place us where we want to be – a point where we see higher outcomes, stronger science, mathematics and language passes, and expanded success rates for entry to higher education,” said Education Minister Naledi Pandor.

A total of 351 503 of the record 528 525 full-time students who sat the exam were successful, with this year‘s 66,5% pass rate lower than last year‘s 68,3%, when 347 184 of 508 363 candidates were successful.

Of the 69 561 candidates who sat the exam in the Eastern Cape this year, 29 292 – or 40,7% – failed. The department said it was not satisfied with this result.

The outcome does not meet the target of a 5% increase the department had set for itself and falls just short of the 60% pass rate achieved in 2003.

However, Education MEC Mkhangeli Matomela said it was heartening to note that the small increase over last year‘s result had been achieved against a backdrop of many of the other provinces experiencing a downward trend in results.

The number of matric candidates obtaining an endorsement also increased slightly over last year to 10,1%.

In the Southern Cape, a total of 4 188 pupils wrote this year‘s exam – up slightly from last year‘s 3 972 – with 3 549 passes, and 23,2% of that figure with endorsement.

Matomela told a media briefing in East London: “There needs to be improvement – I am not satisfied at all. Our schools were capable of achieving more than they achieved this year.”

Matomela said the focus in the new year would be on stabilising the department, working together with traditional leaders and business partners, and concentrating on the “whole system” and not just matric outcomes.

“We are trapped in Grade 12 fever,” he said. About 700 people – including matric candidates, their parents, teacher union representatives and senior members of the education department – gathered in East London yesterday for the release of the 2006 results.

Addressing the guests, Matomela said a study he had initiated following the 2005 matric exams which scrutinised schools with a pass rate between zero and 20% revealed, among other things, that a major cause of poor performance was absenteeism.

“Unacceptably high levels of absenteeism were reported among educators in poorly performing schools,” he said. “They are stealing from the government. It is clear that the management of leave, including sick leave, must be tightened up to ensure that educators are in class when they are supposed to be.”

Pupil absenteeism was also a growing concern. Matomela said the reasons for this included drug abuse, teenage pregnancies, cohabitation, social grant payments, poverty and customary rites. Despite appeals to traditional leaders, he said, Grade 12 pupils were undergoing rites at critical times of the year and absenteeism was frequent on either side of school holidays. After warning letters were issued last year when principals were asked to account for their school‘s performance, Matomela said, the department realised that many of them had not had sufficient training and support.

It had initiated a system of mentors to assist principals. The project had already had a meaningful outcome. “Of the 46 schools which achieved less than 20% (pass rate) in 2005 which were part of the project, all but six have showed improvement in their overall pass rate this year – one even moving from 18,2% to 100%.”

The average improvement was 19,9%.

Southern Cape district head Bonnie Sesenyamotse said the results in the region were good, “it‘s just that one still hopes that you can get to the elusive 100% pass”. Only three schools in the district had pass rates lower than 60% – the benchmark for under-performance.

“The three worst-performing schools in the district came in at 57%.”

Why should we pay under-performers?

EASTERN Cape Education MEC Mkhangeli Matomela has ordered district managers to crack the whip on all principals whose matric results dropped this year despite the special support their schools got from the government.

Matomela’s stern warning yesterday followed his announcement of a 59,3 percent matric pass rate in the Eastern Cape – an increase of 2,6 percent on last year.

The Education Department spent more than R23 million on its Matric Intervention Programme (MIP) to assist 353 schools whose matric results dipped to less than 50 percent last year.

About 46 of these schools received extra attention through the MEC’s Intervention Programme, which saw mentors visiting the schools weekly and motivational speakers doing monthly rounds.

But only six showed improvement in their overall pass rates.

“I’ve had a meeting with district directors and I gave them a clear mandate to act against principals of the schools whose matric results have dropped,” the MEC said in East London yesterday when he announced the results.

The principals received warnings last year.

The MEC pointed to Khanyolwethu Senior Secondary School at Ngcobo, where eight matrics sat for exams last year and none passed.

The school’s results dropped from 63,6 percent in 2004, to 41,7 percent last year.

“If I was a district director of that school which received zero percent this year, I would suspend the principal immediately and appoint someone who will run that school properly right from the beginning of the year ...

“We cannot continue paying people who are under-performing.

“Private companies do not pay people who do not perform. Why is it that in government, we continue to pay people who are not performing?”

The province is among four whose matric results improved this year. Gauteng, North West and Mpumalanga were the others.

Of the 41268 pupils who passed this year, 22656 are female.

But only 7002 of the 69561 (10,1 percent) of all Eastern Cape matrics qualify to go to university.

Of these 3418 are male and 3584 female.

Education Minister Naledi Pandor welcomed the Eastern Cape’s improvement but raised concerns as the province was “still way below” the national average.

Matomela said next month there will be a conference for all stakeholders to craft a strategy which would assist the province crack the 60 percent mark.

“I am not satisfied at all with these results.

“Our learners have got the potential to do more than what we have achieved.

“This province belongs in the 70s and above … if one takes into account its history.”

Last December, Matomela said nothing less than a 5percent improvement would be acceptable.

ANC Education portfolio committee chairperson Mahlubandile Qwase welcomed the increase but regretted that they had not achieved the target.

PAC’s Zingisa Mkabile called for greater investment in books so that the not-so-good results of agriculture, maths and science improve.

“Overall, we are moving in the right direction.”

Teachers have mixed feelings about pass rate

The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) congratulated successful matriculants on Thursday, but said the small decline in the pass rate was cause for concern.

"The small decline in the pass rate - for the second year - has to be cause for concern. Educational progress cannot be allowed to stall," the union said in a statement on Thursday.

"We need a qualitative leap forward in terms of pass rates. We need more information and workable strategies to improve the quality of education on the ground. But we also need teachers, learners, parents and the department to come together and commit themselves to improving the quality of education."

Sadtu said the increase in the number of matriculants in the last five years had not been matched by an increase in resources, particular in large, poor rural provinces.

Problems with resource allocation to schools stemmed from inadequate budgets to provinces, underspending by some provinces and an insufficient share of provincial budgets going to education.

"Present mechanisms - particularly the post provisioning model - are unable to get resources to where they are needed. This results in over-large class sizes and failure to make permanent appointments. Sadtu will be taking up the issue of post provisioning and temporary teachers as a priority campaign in the new year."

However, the union said it was encouraged by the increase in the number of matriculants and believed that to maintain this increase in access to education the factors leading to drop-out and failure must be understood.

"Our sense is that issues of historical disadvantage and poverty associated with race, gender, class and the rural-urban divide, and uneven support and poor management especially in some districts and provinces are crucial here and we would expect the department of education to deepen its analysis in this respect."

The department must also explain why results are uneven across the provinces with improvements in four provinces, the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the North West and deterioration in the rest.

"We need to understand better why these differences occur. Limpopo stands out with a decline of over nine percent in the pass rate. This needs to be investigated."

Sadtu said support and monitoring had a positive effect on performance in badly performing schools but around 139 schools in 2006 produced a pass rate below 20 percent.

"It appears that the strategy needs to be extended beyond poorly performing schools to include identification of schools at risk of falling into this category."

The union said it was also necessary to assist students from poor communities to access tertiary institutions.

"We need to investigate the feasibility of a central admissions agency to make the process of applying more affordable, to assist in finding places and to help direct student funding to where it is needed most," said Sadtu.

Education system fails kids

The South African education system and the economy are failing the pupils of the country, the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) said in a statement on Thursday.

The union said this following the release of the 2006 matric results.

"The education system does not yet prepare learners for the world of work, as the recent policy reforms are not established enough to deliver tangible results in practice," said union general secretary Dennis George.

He said Fedusa was also concerned about "the lagging standards in South African schools".

"This two-fold problem has been acknowledged by the Department of Education... on the one hand we find a syllabus that has arguably diminished over the past years, while on the other we find numerous problems relating to capacity."

The Democratic Alliance released a statement saying the education system is failing to provide South Africa's youth with the skills needed to move into tertiary education institutions or enter the job market.

DA education spokesperson George Boinamo noted a third of the country's matriculants were failing their core schooling.

George noted capacity problems as the unavailability of suitably qualified teachers in priority subjects such as maths and science, and provision of standardised study material and physical learning environments.

In regard to the economy, George said not enough jobs were being created to absorb the passing matriculants.

"While the economy was able to generate 544 000 new jobs in the period between March 2005 and March 2006, Fedusa remains concerned that the majority of these budding learners will not be able to find sustainable employment," he said.

No reason for the gloom

EDUCATION experts were predicting last night that the Eastern Cape’s matric class of 2006 is set for gloomy news today.

They believe that, when the matric results are officially released this morning, they will show, at best, a small improvement on last year’s pass of 56,7 percent – or, at worst, the unthinkable, a decline.

This comes on the back of a promise by the province after last year’s terrible results that this year would be different.

However, a senior government official told the Daily Dispatch that despite the gloom in education circles there had been an improvement.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said: “What is definite is that there is some improvement. We are steadily improving year-by-year, contrary to what people expect, despite the challenges that we face.”

He refused to give the exact figure, saying it was the “prerogative of the Minister (Naledi Pandor) and the MEC (Mkhangeli Matomela) to give the specific figures”.

His assessment follows three weeks of speculation that the actual figure had dropped by at least a percentage point from last year.

“This information came because the overall results had not been verified and finalised,” he said.

“This has been a long process that has only been finalised in the last few days.”

Education Department spokesperson Loyiso Pulumani could not confirm or deny the increase.

“Unfortunately at this stage I have no preview to any information that pertains to the outcome of the 2006 matric results.

“Just like everybody else throughout the country, we also await with bated breath for those results.”

He said Bhisho had put in a lot of work towards improving the results, through a learner attainment strategy and the Matric Intervention Programme.

“We are hopeful that they will bear fruit, especially to those that did extremely bad last year.”

The Dispatch was told that Education Department head Nomlamli Mahanjana, who has been in close contact with exam regulator Umalusi and Pandor’s office, only gave her political head, MEC Matomela, a briefing yesterday.

Matomela, in turn, briefed other stakeholders, including teachers’ unions about the overall picture.

Union representatives refused to divulge any information, saying the results would be made known to the public today.

“We can’t speculate.” said Douglas Rwentela, National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa provincial chairperson, who was at the meeting.

“All I can say is that one would expect the province to perform better as there was stability in 2006.”

However, he said, the overall problem-free year could be overshadowed by the ongoing problems of the “far from perfect” manner in which the Learner Support Material programme was being managed by the department.

“We’ve had many high schools who received little or no stationery at all.

“There are still schools without teachers for matric subjects.

“This overshadows the political stability that we enjoyed this year. That’s why we expect anything when results are announced.”

Streis Wahl, Suid-Afrikaanse Onderwysers Unie’s provincial chairperson, was even less optimistic.

“I don’t think this year’s results will be any better than last year’s,” said Wahl.

He attributed the poor performance to the fact that teachers have been called away to so many workshops run by the department during school hours throughout the year.

“We’ve had CAS (continuous assessment) sessions during class time, as well as workshops of the new curriculum during school hours.

“Our children have been left alone, no revision – nothing.

“And now you tell me that results will improve.

“That will never happen unless the department learns to respect school time and arrange training workshops for after hours.”

Mxolisi Dimaza, South African Democratic Teachers’ Union provincial secretary, concurred with points raised by Rwentela and Wahl, although he was optimistic that, despite the challenges, the results would improve.

Dimaza said the February agreement signed between unions and the department, which saw thousands of temporary teachers being absorbed into the system, had boosted the morale of both teachers and pupils.

“I am positive that this (agreement) will yield better results. Teachers were committed, as were the learners,” said Dimaza.

Over the last five years, the pass rate has fluctuated.

Last year’s result was an improvement over 2004 when a measly 53,5 percent of Grade 12s passed.

This year, 75046 full-time candidates sat for the exam.