BLACKBOARD BATTLE
More parents struggle to pay
EIGHT matric pupils in the Eastern Cape village of Vrystad hoped their certificates would be passports out of poverty. All eight failed.
Their school, Middle Zolo Senior Secondary, is one of 18 across the land where all the matrics in the Class of 2016 failed. The Eastern Cape had two schools with no passes, Kwa-Zulu-Natal had 10, Limpopo four and Gauteng two.
The Zolo school principal, Zukile Njozela, blamed an “incompetent” maths and science teacher, who had “questionable qualifications”.
He said the local education office had ignored the teacher’s shortcomings.
Among the pupils at the 18 schools are many “progressed” pupils who had been promoted to matric despite failing to obtain the required marks.
The teacher blamed for the poor matric class had “been producing the same results for the past 10 years”, Njozela said.
“These children passed all the other subjects except for his.”
Njozela said the Vrystad community, in Nqamakwe municipality, was poor and most parents relied on state grants.
“Education is the only thing that will take these children out of poverty and uplift this community.
“The previous principal resigned because she was getting written warnings for underperformance, but nothing is being done about the source of the problem.”
KwaZulu-Natal education department spokesman Muzi Mahlambi said heads would roll at the 34 schools in the province with pass rates of 10% or lower.
He said the schools had been given ample support and provided with qualified teachers.
“All schools have got management, so they have to tell us what more the department should have done. We did all that we were expected to do.”
Two public schools in Limpopo and two private schools owned by Tinyiko Khosa, who is facing criminal charges for allegedly leaking a maths exam paper, scored 0%.
Limpopo education spokesman Naledzani Rasila said an intervention programme was ready for implementation.
“All the underperforming schools are going to be receiving intervention, looking at improving their results.”
Oupa Bodibe, spokesman for the Gauteng education department, was uncertain if the schools with a 0% pass rate were public or private.
“If they are private schools, the sanction that the department has is to withdraw the licence for them to conduct examinations,” he said.
“For public schools, obviously you have to understand the causes of the 0% pass rate.
“Options available include removing the principal and the school management team,” he said.
Professor Ruksana Osman, dean of humanities and professor of education at the University of the Witwatersrand, said academic issues, administrative inefficiencies, lack of accountability and lack of leadership contributed to the poor performance of certain schools.
Lack of political accountability had to be tackled first, she said.
“Part of this is not providing schools and teachers with the support they need.
“The long-term effects [of underperformance] are that you get young people who are getting older but who are not getting the matric qualification, and it is going to increase the unemployment rate [and the] inequality gap.”