The State of the Nation's EducationBy: Paul Perton
Before the current government got its hands properly on the levers of power in 1994, it seems likely that much time and effort was dedicated to its plans for educating future generations of South Africans.
Certainly, since grabbing the political joystick, few would argue that the government has used its majority in parliament to implement some questionable legislation in this regard. A decade and a half on, many of the policies of the government look far from the beneficial acts intended to serve the needs of the majority in this country. Education is no exception.
Many peculiarities have emerged from the government’s legislative programmes over these years, but few as bizarre as those surrounding the teaching of our children.
My credentials to make such an observation? I am a taxpayer, businessman, parent and a committed South African. What I want to say here needs no qualification in the subject; everything you read here is in the public domain.
Despite the efforts of our leaders to have us believe otherwise, South Africa is a third world nation. We grow by our efforts and slide backwards when we let ourselves down. We aspire for high single digit growth which will put us in the vanguard amongst our emerging peers, yet we have an economy which is hamstrung inter alia by the lack of skilled manpower and worse: effective management.
Our education system is intended to fill those gaps of course. Delivering rounded, able and schooled individuals into each and every strata of the workplace is what an education system does.
Except that it doesn’t and our country, its economy and the population as a whole are suffering as a result. The bulk of the nation’s children leave school barely able to grasp history or geography outside our borders. Worse, these children have little numeracy beyond basic mathematics and few read.
There is now more than a complete generation of South African youth which has been educated in a system conceived and run by our majority government. It is hard, therefore, to imagine why the ongoing and poor educational results up to and including matriculation are still blamed on the former regime. The whining from the government about disadvantage remains; yet it’s way past time for those leaders to earn their fat salaries and shoulder responsibility for educating our children properly, no matter how heavy the mantle.
I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before these poor previously disadvantaged souls realise they have been further disadvantaged by the very government their parents chose to improve their lives. Could they one day band together and pursue the government in a kind of class action, seeking redress for wasting their education and ultimately, employment opportunities?
For now … back to the school leavers. Properly prepared or not, each and every one of these youngsters have been delivered full of anticipation and expectation to the doorstep of their future employers. All too many have been disappointed.
In times of economic growth, when our targets are within reach, employers can generally afford to be benign when they employ school and university leavers. They know that time on the job, mentorship programmes and the osmosis of skills will soon turn those callow youngsters into useful members of their respective teams.
When the economy is not faring so well, employers can afford to pick and choose. Applicants with only the median-driven education available to most will struggle to find meaningful and fulfilling employment, to say nothing of decent remuneration.
Sadly, this isn’t unique to South Africa. Many countries have opted for similar education systems as our own - if memory serves, we imported Outcomes Based Education (OBE) from New Zealand, where it has been moderately successful. In South Africa, we do not have an even slightly homogenous society, which is one of the great underpinnings of OBE. We have thousands of under-resourced schools, misappropriated funding, undelivered text books, drunk teachers, leaked matric papers, abuse and as a result, a propensity to burn down rather than build.
Outside of the (reasonably) structured urban centres, you could be forgiven for shrugging your shoulders and judging pre-matric education to be shambolic at best and non-existent at worst. What hope is there of these so-called centres of learning ever delivering a functional education?
And as if that weren’t enough, our universities have also been forced into an extended period of median-based education. These centres of higher learning have been driven by government into handing out degrees like confetti; lest the poor students commit hara-kiri or set fire to the place on hearing of their failure to attend lectures and/or succeed. More recently, sanity appears to prevail and realistic examinations and degree awards now seem to be a more predictable result.
In recent years, hundreds of thousands of young South Africans have emerged from our schools, colleges, universities and other institutions with little in the way of real world skills, beyond their own aptitude to succeed. And, if you were unfortunate enough to have grown up in a township, or been subjected to inner city poverty, chances are even the will to succeed might be missing in your personal make-up.
Recently left school? Just remember; it’s not your fault. The money and grandiose schemes to educate you have always been available. Just not where, properly managed or in the fashion you might have wanted.
We produce attorneys, doctors and dentists by the barrow load, but few technical trainees and fewer apprentices. A handful of engineers. Management training only commences at tertiary level. Trade schools have all but disappeared. Making the desperate shortage of skilled school and university leavers even more acute, the very fuels of success; competition and winning have also largely been eradicated.
The reason: failure is unthinkable for the psychological damage it might cause. In the UK, the government is so concerned that their poor little things shouldn’t be scarred for life by failure, that their lack of success is no longer noted as such. It is now called “deferred success”. That’ll make the little perishers feel better.
If the media is correct, South Africa will go to the polls in May this year. We can probably ill afford a change of government at this stage of our development, but the loss of some, or maybe most of the current government’s majority will perhaps sound some alarm bells in those hallowed halls. It might bring some change, including an end to the internal post-Polokwane pissing competition that has driven the current administration into a stasis that lasted through most of 2008.
The man in the street has a right to be angry at the waste, corruption and lack of delivery that is the hallmark of the current incumbents. Many who read this article will do so far from their families, homes and homeland; most as a result of rampant crime, poor employment opportunities and the myriad of issues that make-up life in South Africa today.
The thinking person takes action. Those less well equipped might not be able to. The cynics amongst us might point to the abysmal education delivered to most of the youth of our nation and see in it some kind of bizarre cause and effect.
Before the current government got its hands properly on the levers of power in 1994, it seems likely that much time and effort was dedicated to its plans for educating future generations of South Africans.
Certainly, since grabbing the political joystick, few would argue that the government has used its majority in parliament to implement some questionable legislation in this regard. A decade and a half on, many of the policies of the government look far from the beneficial acts intended to serve the needs of the majority in this country. Education is no exception.
Many peculiarities have emerged from the government’s legislative programmes over these years, but few as bizarre as those surrounding the teaching of our children.
My credentials to make such an observation? I am a taxpayer, businessman, parent and a committed South African. What I want to say here needs no qualification in the subject; everything you read here is in the public domain.
Despite the efforts of our leaders to have us believe otherwise, South Africa is a third world nation. We grow by our efforts and slide backwards when we let ourselves down. We aspire for high single digit growth which will put us in the vanguard amongst our emerging peers, yet we have an economy which is hamstrung inter alia by the lack of skilled manpower and worse: effective management.
Our education system is intended to fill those gaps of course. Delivering rounded, able and schooled individuals into each and every strata of the workplace is what an education system does.
Except that it doesn’t and our country, its economy and the population as a whole are suffering as a result. The bulk of the nation’s children leave school barely able to grasp history or geography outside our borders. Worse, these children have little numeracy beyond basic mathematics and few read.
There is now more than a complete generation of South African youth which has been educated in a system conceived and run by our majority government. It is hard, therefore, to imagine why the ongoing and poor educational results up to and including matriculation are still blamed on the former regime. The whining from the government about disadvantage remains; yet it’s way past time for those leaders to earn their fat salaries and shoulder responsibility for educating our children properly, no matter how heavy the mantle.
I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before these poor previously disadvantaged souls realise they have been further disadvantaged by the very government their parents chose to improve their lives. Could they one day band together and pursue the government in a kind of class action, seeking redress for wasting their education and ultimately, employment opportunities?
For now … back to the school leavers. Properly prepared or not, each and every one of these youngsters have been delivered full of anticipation and expectation to the doorstep of their future employers. All too many have been disappointed.
In times of economic growth, when our targets are within reach, employers can generally afford to be benign when they employ school and university leavers. They know that time on the job, mentorship programmes and the osmosis of skills will soon turn those callow youngsters into useful members of their respective teams.
When the economy is not faring so well, employers can afford to pick and choose. Applicants with only the median-driven education available to most will struggle to find meaningful and fulfilling employment, to say nothing of decent remuneration.
Sadly, this isn’t unique to South Africa. Many countries have opted for similar education systems as our own - if memory serves, we imported Outcomes Based Education (OBE) from New Zealand, where it has been moderately successful. In South Africa, we do not have an even slightly homogenous society, which is one of the great underpinnings of OBE. We have thousands of under-resourced schools, misappropriated funding, undelivered text books, drunk teachers, leaked matric papers, abuse and as a result, a propensity to burn down rather than build.
Outside of the (reasonably) structured urban centres, you could be forgiven for shrugging your shoulders and judging pre-matric education to be shambolic at best and non-existent at worst. What hope is there of these so-called centres of learning ever delivering a functional education?
And as if that weren’t enough, our universities have also been forced into an extended period of median-based education. These centres of higher learning have been driven by government into handing out degrees like confetti; lest the poor students commit hara-kiri or set fire to the place on hearing of their failure to attend lectures and/or succeed. More recently, sanity appears to prevail and realistic examinations and degree awards now seem to be a more predictable result.
In recent years, hundreds of thousands of young South Africans have emerged from our schools, colleges, universities and other institutions with little in the way of real world skills, beyond their own aptitude to succeed. And, if you were unfortunate enough to have grown up in a township, or been subjected to inner city poverty, chances are even the will to succeed might be missing in your personal make-up.
Recently left school? Just remember; it’s not your fault. The money and grandiose schemes to educate you have always been available. Just not where, properly managed or in the fashion you might have wanted.
We produce attorneys, doctors and dentists by the barrow load, but few technical trainees and fewer apprentices. A handful of engineers. Management training only commences at tertiary level. Trade schools have all but disappeared. Making the desperate shortage of skilled school and university leavers even more acute, the very fuels of success; competition and winning have also largely been eradicated.
The reason: failure is unthinkable for the psychological damage it might cause. In the UK, the government is so concerned that their poor little things shouldn’t be scarred for life by failure, that their lack of success is no longer noted as such. It is now called “deferred success”. That’ll make the little perishers feel better.
If the media is correct, South Africa will go to the polls in May this year. We can probably ill afford a change of government at this stage of our development, but the loss of some, or maybe most of the current government’s majority will perhaps sound some alarm bells in those hallowed halls. It might bring some change, including an end to the internal post-Polokwane pissing competition that has driven the current administration into a stasis that lasted through most of 2008.
The man in the street has a right to be angry at the waste, corruption and lack of delivery that is the hallmark of the current incumbents. Many who read this article will do so far from their families, homes and homeland; most as a result of rampant crime, poor employment opportunities and the myriad of issues that make-up life in South Africa today.
The thinking person takes action. Those less well equipped might not be able to. The cynics amongst us might point to the abysmal education delivered to most of the youth of our nation and see in it some kind of bizarre cause and effect.
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