New school-leaver’s certificate is Bantu Education in disguise

Hendrik Verwoerd would have been proud of the new General Education and Training Certificate, which will allow learners to exit school at Grade 9, and will be recognised in the National Qualifications Framework under skill level 1.

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has confirmed that the certificate was introduced at 1,000 schools in all nine provinces last year. Let us consider what a skill level 1 is.

Internationally jobs are ranked by skill levels on the International Standard Classification of Occupations scale. Skill level is defined as a function of the complexity and range of tasks and duties to be performed in an occupation. Occupations at skill level 1 typically require the performance of simple and routine physical or manual tasks, and the use of handheld tools such as shovels or simple electrical tools, or equipment such as vacuum cleaners.

It includes tasks such as cleaning; digging; lifting and carrying materials by hand; sorting, storing or assembling goods by hand (sometimes in the context of mechanised operations); operating nonmotorised vehicles; and picking fruit and vegetables.

Occupations classified at skill level 1 include office cleaners, freight handlers, garden labourers and kitchen assistants.

The ANC government is, in effect, limiting young, mainly black South Africans to either low-skilled jobs or unemployment.

Instead, we need to make sure more learners finish matric and do so with high-quality grades and with proficiency in science and mathematics. Going to vocational education and training colleges without a full grasp of the subject matter from Grade 1 to 9 will not help young people obtain technical qualifications and skills the economy requires.

We face a critical shortage of skills, and our performance in human skills development is underwhelming. We must address this to meet the demands of the evolving job market. An early exit option out of school for Grade 9 learners will not do the trick.

The government should instead be focused on fixing what is broken in our public education system: the lack of resources and infrastructure, low standards and a weak curriculum, pit toilets, crowded classrooms, unaccountable and underequipped teachers, and textbook shortages.

Build One South Africa advocates a school voucher programme that returns the power to decide which school a child goes to back to the learner’s parents. Parents have the most vested interest in the long-term education of their child. They care enough to conduct sensible due diligence, which will unearth key information related to the performance of nearby schools.

This voucher, estimated at R15,000 per annum (based on the current government cost to educate each child), should be given directly to parents, who will be given a choice of either using it for payment at a nearby public school, or adding some of their own capital to take their children to a private or semi-private school.

If paired with a radically increased public infrastructure investment programme in public schools that attract more children as a result of the voucher system, bad schools will run out of business while good schools will be enlarged and recapitalised.