2012 a bad year for SA education sector

The year 2012 has not been kind to the Department of Basic Education. More importantly, it has been yet another difficult year for too many learners in South Africa. Three weeks ago Monday, nearly 560,000 sat for the first day of matric exams, an accomplishment the department deemed a success.

Ironically, just days before, Minister Angie Motshegka published an open letter apologizing for the failed months leading up to the exam: “I know 2012 has not been an easy year for you. I also understand that you may feel I, Minister of Basic Education, have let you down. I apologise unreservedly for all you have been through as a learner.”

No, it is not easy to learn maths and science when there are no laboratories in which to experiment.  Indeed it is nearly impossible to feel safe, clean and ready for school in the 720 schools without sanitation or the nearly 900 schools without electricity.

If the Department requires at least a 30% to pass, then it has failed its own goal of replacing 49 mud schools (or ‘inappropriate structures’ in the Department’s jargon) in the Eastern Cape with a measly 8%, or four schools, being completed in 2012.

Equal Education will be appearing before Bhisho High Court on November 20th to demand binding norms and standards for school infrastructure from Minister Motshekga so these failures to provide a proper learning environment do not continue.

But what about the unfortunate events of 2012?  The textbooks crisis in Limpopo and thousands of unfilled teaching posts in the Eastern Cape? How in the face of these, could the Minister declare in June that “there is no crisis in education”?

The department’s response to these incidents was telling. Time and time again, it called for understanding that educating millions of children is an overwhelmingly complicated task. It is. In its strategic and planning documents, the department recognizes too well the substantive challenges that face our learners. Yet, the department was compelled to action in these specific cases only after legal action by outside groups.

Minister Motshekga said that matric learners in Limpopo were ‘unaffected’ by the textbook crisis and were ‘ready’ for exams. It is unlikely that learners sitting for exams in 2012 were unaffected by years of gross mismanagement in the Limpopo Department of Education. It is unlikely that the Grade 3 learners without textbooks were truly prepared for the Annual National Assessment administered in September.

Equal Education will be appearing before Bhisho High Court on November 20th to demand binding norms and standards for school infrastructure from Minister Motshekga so these failures to provide a proper learning environment do not continue.

In regards to exams starting on time, the Minister was “happy to announce that reports coming in from the Eastern Cape indicate that we only experienced challenges in the Ngqamakhwe area in Butterworth.” It is unlikely that it was just torrential rains that threatened Eastern Cape learners’ chances for success on Monday considering 6,000 teaching posts were unfilled for most of 2012 and only two-thirds had been temporarily filled by September.
National Senior Certificate pass rates should not be the leading indicator of our education system’s success. Indeed, the pass rate has increased in recent years, from 62.5% in 2008 to 70.2% in 2011. But these numbers reflect improvements made over twelve years a learner is in the system and not the success of short-term fixes.
We must demand the Minister and her department swiftly and meaningfully address these very real crises of 2012, which are not temporary but widespread and structural. When we don’t provide proper sanitation for an 8th grader in Mpumalanga or textbooks to a 2nd grader in Limpopo in 2012, we are failing a matric learner in the future. We simply cannot afford to send more apology letters to each graduating class.
Michael Arnst is a Princeton in Africa (PiAf) Fellow at Equal Education.
Souce: SABC News