The Results Are In

Ok, now I need you to think hard…back to the time around the strikes when I talked about the concern for the matrics of the current seniors. For those of you who tried to think and still couldn’t remember the matric is more or less the Senior Exit Exam, similar in concept to the S.A.T., except it makes or breaks your chance of passing your final year of high school. If you don’t pass you have to endure more schooling in order to get the equivalent of a high school diploma. Anyways there was a lot of concern around the teacher’s strike because we were getting close to testing time for the seniors and no one was in school, plus the kids had extra time off this year for the World Cup; not a good combination for a winning matric record.

Well since I know you have been waiting in anticipation, matric exams results are out! And guess what? Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced triumphantly on Thursday morning that “it’s a whopping in increase in the matric pass rate.” Hmmm, so much concern and then an increase in the pass rate. Fishy if you ask me. Then again, no one is asking me, so it is necessary to say that it is also being questioned by education specialists. This year they experienced a 67.8% pass rate, beating the 2009 rate by 7.2% with increases in all 9 provinces. This is only the 3^rd time that there has been this large of a pass rate since 1994. Apparently this significant of an increase can be attributed to the efforts the government has put into improving the education in South Africa. Just throwing it out there, but it couldn’t possibly be that we are trying to make a case for S.A. to keep stepping up on that international platform, especially will so many eyes still looking here following the World Cup.

According to an article published on Friday by the Sowetan, the real pass rate is 57 percent, as opposed to the 67.8 percent announced on Thursday by the department. Oh, but don’t worry, there is a rebuttal. “During a live interview on Radio 702, Chief Director of National Exams, Dr Nkosinathi Sishi, maintained that the 2010 matric pass rate is 67.8 percent. ‘537 543 candidates wrote, 364 513 passed. If you divide those two numbers, you will get the same figure of 67.8 percent,’ Dr Sishi said.” Apparently the newspaper had used the number of students enrolled in place of the number of students who wrote exams. I’m still not to sure about all this. It seems to me that something needs to put in place so that you cannot accidentally calculate a much higher percentage or much lower percentage. Also it is sad that so many students did not write exams. Shouldn’t that number tell us something?

Okay, okay, here are some additional reasons why there is difficult making sense of all of this. In Umalusi’s (quality assurance body) standardization process, raw marks are altered, however, the public and higher education admissions officers are not told of the magnitude of adjustments to original marks. Also Umalusi said that several subjects, those key for further schooling (math, science, etc.), are operating on a reduced curriculum (whatever that means, but it doesn’t sound good) and that reduction is not clear. Additional the so-called “site-based assessments (marks awarded by the schools themselves) tend to inflate the results and finally the L.O. course (life orientation) has serious problem with marks that came out too high making it a difficult to attempt to standardize the marks. I really wish I understood this whole matric thing just a little better so I’d understand the arguments.

Here is the clincher and the part that gets me. While these results show an overall increase, the statistics have zero indication about what is happening in the townships and rural schools. These being the schools that we at GRS work at. Doron Isaacs, coordinator of Equal Education, a Cape Town-based NGO stated “The real inequality in our education system, which is so stark, is not being put before the public.”

If any country in Africa has a chance of bettering their educational standards, it is South Africa. But the important part is to make sure that they don’t just up the standards for those already receiving quality education, which would just continue to increase the gap between the rich and the poor in this country. Sometimes the severe differences between the urban areas and the townships here blow my mind. It is similar to going from a developed Western country to some of the lesser-developing countries, or even a failed state in less than 1 km.

Anyways I don’t write this because I have all the answers. I just write so you can think about it. We shall await the technical report, which will apparently really clarify all this. We shall see. But now a word from Jacob Zuma. "To those matriculants who did not make it, we urge you not to give up. This doesn't mean the end of the world. Many people have been in a similar situation that you are in today, and they emerged successful after another attempt. We want to celebrate with you soon when you have emerged victorious after this setback, we are fully behind you all the way," said the President. For any of you who have seen the comedic works of Trevor Nolan, I hope you will find this comment slightly amusing.