Time to learn

When it comes to the effective allocation of education resources, quality over quantity should hold.

But Mzukisi Qobo, deputy chair: SA research chair on African diplomacy and foreign policy at the University of Johannesburg, says education resources in SA are not targeted.

“We spend about 6.4% or slightly more of GDP on education, but the results are poor, which suggests to me that we are not using those resources in the way that we should,” he explains. (In his February 2016 Budget Speech, finance minister Pravin Gordhan announced that basic education expenditure would increase from R204bn in 2016/17 to R254bn in 2018/19.)  

“As long as we cannot account for the usage of resources, we will not get a grip on the challenges we are facing,” adds Qobo.  

An example of targeting these resources effectively is the key area of teacher training and development.

In a 2016 report released by Stellenbosch University (SU), titled Identifying Binding Constraints in Education, researchers found that only 32% of grade 6 students had access to maths teachers with a desirable level of subject knowledge, compared with considerably higher proportions in countries such as Kenya (90%) and Zimbabwe (76%).

“I don’t think we are investing seriously in modernising teacher training and development,” says Qobo. “You find many teachers who are not skilled, who don’t have access to new tools to teach in the classroom and to empower learners, especially in a country where learners come from conditions where there are social barriers to effective learning and development.”  

Nic Spaull, post-doctoral researcher at SU and a contributor on the above-mentioned report, believes “we should be thinking about competency assessments for new teachers, like a board exam that assesses whether or not prospective teachers have the appropriate content knowledge and pedagogical skill to teach properly.  

“We need to increase the capacity of our teachers and increase the accountability in the system,” says Spaull. “That means offering meaningful training opportunities that have been evaluated and shown to be effective, and ensuring that there are consequences when teachers don’t do what they are able to do.”  

An improved pass rate

The recently announced matric results revealed an increase in pass rate from 70.7% in 2015 to 72.5% in 2016. This statistic includes “progressed learners” who also achieved a matric pass.

But the matric pass rate offers a very narrow glimpse into SA’s schooling system, says Kate Gaffney, senior researcher at Africa Check. “It’s an important measure of what opportunities school leavers have. It should not, however, be used to assess the quality of our education system in isolation,” explains Gaffney.

Instead, proposes Spaull, “we should also be looking at statistics such as the throughput pass rate, subject choice combinations and the number of high-level passes. And also how many of those with bachelor’s passes actually go on to university and how many qualify with a degree.”

Ruksana Osman, dean of the faculty of humanities at Wits, says an over-emphasis on the matric pass rate creates the expectation that an increase in the pass rate means we are getting better or that quality is improving.

“In fact, the percentage increase in matric pass rates tells us nothing about the quality of the pass […] We need a focus on lifelong learning, starting with our greatest investment in excellent schooling for all foundation phase learners. This excellence needs to continue to middle school, high school, tertiary and adult education.”

What about those who failed?

The department of higher education announced on 12 January that it would be opening three new technical and vocational education and training (TVET) campuses in 2017 to help accommodate the hundreds of thousands of matrics who failed to get university exemption – Thabazimbi Campus at the Waterberg TVET College in Limpopo, and Bambanani Campus and Nkandla A Campus, both at uMfolozi TVET College in KwaZulu-Natal.

“We need to move away from the university-or-nothing system since fewer than 15% of a cohort will actually make it to university. What happens to the rest? We need to ensure that there are high-quality vocational and technical training opportunities available to those who cannot go to university. At the moment the TVET colleges are often of questionable quality and have very low throughput rates. We need to spend more time and energy increasing the quality of our TVET colleges,” says Spaull.

Osman agrees that diversification in schooling and in tertiary education is vital so that students’ education and schooling matches their needs, interests and capabilities.

“Unfortunately, the technical and vocation sectors have a bad reputation and students do not find these areas attractive enough. Part of this lack of attraction for students relates to the fact that the quality of teaching in these areas is very weak; most schools don’t have the infrastructure appropriate to the area of study and teachers don’t have the knowledge and skills to teach these areas of work […] This sector needs a lot of work so that it can be made attractive and young people feel they want to go into this sector.”

Osman says SA could learn from Germany’s experience, an excellent example of how the technical and vocational fields have been developed.

Qobo warns that the promotion of these skills needs to go hand-in-hand with overall improvements in the education system and the elevation of math and science, because even some of these skills require these subjects.

But he believes it is a good move by the department to resuscitate the TVET colleges and put emphasis on practical skills, “because there are clear gaps in our economy related to artisanal skills”.  But it won’t be the silver bullet to solving all the challenges, as he puts it.

Are we getting smarter?

Spaull says the education system in SA is in a dire state, but improving. Qobo is cautious about the outlook and believes that leadership is required to improve the outlook for basic education.

While basic education minister Angie Motshekga does bemoan the current state of the education system, Qobo says nothing much is happening in terms of remedying the situation.

“The world over, some of the major social challenges that used to be in the domain of the public service before are now being tackled on a collaborative basis where you find government working very closely with the private sector, with foundations, with social enterprises that are very serious about and committed to reforms in education. Unfortunately, in SA there is very limited space to come up with solutions across the board.

"[…] We are very fragmented when it comes to finding solutions and this undermines our capacity to augment our knowledge, skills and our imagination to tackle large problems such as education.”

Political parties need to work together and get the nation rallied around improving education, he says. “A new cultural revolution needs to be set in motion to talk about education, maths and science. At present, everyone is tackling this in fragmented spaces and this is unfortunate.”

An emphasis on maths and science

“Today, countries compete on the basis of skills, which becomes a magnet for attracting foreign direct investment, and that is part of what gives private economic agents the confidence to invest in the economy […] especially new industries that are at the technological frontier,” explains Qobo.

“If you do not have a sufficient skills base, you are not going to have the right kind of investments at the right level and therefore you are not going to grow the economy at the rate at which it should grow in order to create jobs, so it becomes a vicious cycle,” he says.

“Secondly, those who tend to lag behind in maths and science are by and large black learners in poor rural schools and poor townships. So when many commentators (including myself) complain about lack of equity in employment positions – especially at senior managerial levels in the corporate sector – what we tend to forget is that it is a symptom of deeper problems in our education system. The playing field is not level and that is both as a result of legacy issues, but also lack of sufficient effort by current government to address challenges in the education system.”

This article originally appeared in the 26 January edition of finweek. Buy and download the magazine here.