Mend education system for next generation

I STRONGLY believe that our education system perpetuates the cycle of poverty and suffering for millions of young South Africans.

According to a recent study by the University of Stellenbosch, the quality of education offered in our state schools, particularly in townships and rural areas, is extremely poor.

The majority of parents cannot afford to send their children to former Model C schools where they can get a better level of education.

As a result, they stand little chance of furthering their studies at university level or being able to secure higher paying jobs. The few who succeed do so through affirmative action or vocational training.

Poor-quality education for the majority of our pupils leads to poor labour market outcomes, which in turn propagates poorquality education for the next generation.

Pupils graduating from former Model C schools have relatively good chances of entering the upper end of the labour market, often but not always after first acquiring some form of tertiary education.

In contrast, the majority of pupils attend formerly black schools that typically also suffer from poor management, little parental participation and poor assessment – produce poor cognitive outcomes, which are poorly rewarded in the labour market, resulting in low employment probabilities and low wages from unskilled occupations.

The persistence of deep inequality, two decades after apartheid and despite the considerable shifts in government spending in poor schools, is a powerful indictment of the South African education system’s failure to overcome past injustices.

The imperative to improve on this cannot be clearer, to create a better future for the majority of our children, who are caught up in the cycle of poverty.

To overcome the very low standard of education, especially in rural and former black schools, there has to be a radical educational transformation.

First and foremost, there must be training colleges for educators to enrol for in-service education, which should be manned by competent and well-educated lecturers.

Second, the unacceptably low levels of passing grades should be raised to no less than 40%, as well as the aggregate.

Third, automatic promotions – allowing for one failure in a phase and then an automatic promotion to the next grade – must be rescinded.

Fourth, mother-tongue education must be implemented with a second language, compulsory as well. Science and maths must also form an integral part of the curriculum.

Promotion of educators must be done on merit by an independent assessment team of academics who are well conversed in the requirements of the post concerned. It must progress one step at a time and avoid situations where a Level 1 educator is promoted to a principal.

There are many other steps that should also be implemented to make our education system competitive at an international level. At the moment, we are languishing at an unacceptable level among 150 nations. If we do not take action now, future generations will be the victims.

JAYRAJ BACHU Clare Estate