Hope for quality public schools

The shocking results in the national school mathematics tests are even worse than they appear. They indicate that teaching is generally appalling, and that many children are being pushed through every year without having met the requirements. The grade nines who wrote the test averaged just 13%. This means thousands of them must have achieved close to zero, pulling down the average despite the presence of some pupils who achieved much higher marks.

The fact is that a minority of public schools (10%-15% of the total) remain centres of excellence that by any measure are comparable with private schools. At typical high-performance public schools, parents pay all the running costs and employ around 50% of the teachers — operating budgets of R30m/year are now common. Departments of education contribute only the salaries of the remaining teachers.

In the case of Rivonia Primary School, the supreme court of appeal has upheld the right of the governing body to determine admission policy. It has also given weight to parents’ huge financial contribution. This crucial ruling does not enable schools to refuse pupils on grounds of race, place of residence or ability to pay — that would be illegal — but it does empower them to set a maximum enrolment, based on the department’s own ratios.

It is not the fault of functioning public schools that government has failed to build more schools to absorb migrants from rural areas and other countries, or that many existing public schools are half-empty because parents have lost faith in them.

Provinces should be trying to nurture the remaining centres of excellence instead of harassing them and insisting on policies that will drive anyone who has an option — parents, teachers and pupils — into private schools. If that happens, forget about better averages in the national maths tests.