Policy of passing pupils under the spotlight

THE DEPARTMENT of Basic Education’s policy of progressing pupils who have failed a grade is again under the spotlight.

On August 14, Rafael Griffiths, principal at Prosperitus Secondary School in Eersterus, Tshwane, highlighted the policy as being one of the many reasons why some children struggle to cope in school.

Progression is the advancement of a learner from one grade to the next, excluding Grade R, in spite of the pupil not having fulfilled all the requirements for promotion.

The policy was put in place to prevent learners from staying in one phase for longer than four years. One phase is equal to three grades.

Griffiths spoke about the dismal June exam marks obtained by the Grade 8 and 9 pupils. Only 3 percent of the Grade 8 learners passed the June exams, while only 2 percent of the Grade 9 pupils passed, he said.

One of the possible reasons he singled out is that learners were allowed to proceed to a higher grade even though they had failed the previous grade, leaving them at a disadvantage.

Kate Paterson, an attorney at Section27, said she was aware of the policy but said it needed to be acknowledged that there are serious problems created by pupils who are much too old for their class.

“There are good reasons for not allowing learners to repeat grades endlessly, and the policy provides that learners should be pushed through,” she said.

“The biggest problem here is that learners should not be failing the same grade three times. These learners require adequate individual attention to ensure that they do not continue to fail. Unless this necessary support is provided where necessary, learners will continue to fail and will be unemployable when they leave the school system,” Paterson added.

National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa president Basil Manuel said blaming this policy for poor academic results was a cop-out. “This policy has been around for a long time, for about 12 or 13 years. It has been revised and renewed, but the essence of the policy is still there,” he said.

He added that the policy was put in place because, before it came into effect, there were instances where a pupil as old as 18 would be in the same class with 12-year-olds.

“There is logic behind the policy in that you need to keep a child in their age group. The US has the same policy. In itself, it is not a bad policy,” Manuel said.

He said there were often reasons why a child was not coping, and these should be assessed. It could be a home issue or an abuse issue.

“I have taken issue with the policy when it has to do with grades 10, 11 and 12. You’re setting them up for failure,” Manuel said. In a lot of cases, as with Prosperitus Secondary School, there were not enough finances to ensure smaller classes, so that each pupil was given enough attention where intervention was necessary.

“The problem with implementation is that the support structures are not good enough,” Manuel added.

‘Pupils of 18 can’t be in class with 12-year-olds’