Mmusi Maimane’s view on the need to increase the SA pass rate from 30% to 50% has received a mixed response from various stakeholders.
Among them are the teachers’ organisations, including the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA and the SA Democratic Teachers Union.
These two organisations stated that Maimane was using the country’s education system as a “national campaign for his political ambitions” (City Press, January 10). In response to the teachers’ unions, Maimane noted that “teacher unions have always rejected the idea of continuous teacher assessments. Our argument is that we need to ask better of our teachers so that they are not passing pupils at 30%. So, of course the unions are going to try and defend their position because it will reflect badly on some of their members.”
The conversations between the teachers’ organisations and Maimane indicate ambivalence about the reciprocal relations between politics and education. The conversations also highlight how political influence can either build or destroy an education system.
Unpacking Maimane’s comments, he raises four issues in wanting to increase the subject pass rate from 30% to 50%, namely the country’s developmental aspiration; motivated, qualified and ambitious teachers; the global economy; and finally, better pay for teachers. He notes that “education is the way out of this economic mess. The 4IR [fourth industrial revolution] economy requires specified hard skills. Our teachers are the frontline workers in the quest for economic prosperity. We must reward good teachers. We must remove bad teachers and attract new talent.”
The premise of his thinking touches on crucial elements that are pertinent for the SA child in relation to global competitors and economic emancipation. There is a sense that educating a child is not only for SA but that this child should be equally competitive with his or her peers in the global market. Thus, telling the world that our subject pass rate is 30% is a mockery of our education system.
It gives learners a false sense that if one gets 30% for a subject, he or she has passed the subject, but a combination of all subjects with 30% cannot make one secure university placement. Thus, the critical question to which the department of basic education should respond is what is the rationale behind a 30% subject pass?
Maimane’s sentiments are seen as coming from someone with a dying political life and using education as political oxygen for survival.
What if the comments came from someone belonging to the ANC, and not the DA or EFF? Would it have gone this far?
From my angle, the 30% is a reflection of a failed curriculum practice, not only in SA but in most African countries with nationalised education systems. It is an indication that we have detained learners for 12 years, and to please learners and parents, we comfort them with a 30% subject pass rate.
To me, 30% is also an indication that some learners are not supposed to be doing the curriculum that is forced on them in schools.
There is a need for a curriculum that does not detain learners in subjects in which they have no interest or are not capable of doing. Rather, various courses – not subjects – should be introduced alongside the main curriculum practices. Critical courses, which are in short supply in SA, should be taught as early as Grade 7. This means bringing some technical and vocational education and training (TVET) courses to basic education, such as building, welding, civil engineering, manufacturing, entrepreneurship, and software engineering. This would allow learners to get recognised qualifications along with their Grade 12 results.
The foregoing requires a revamp of the education system so that after 12 years of basic education, learners have something practical to show rather than having all of them moving in one direction and getting nothing at the end of Grade 12. I am of the view that an increase from 30% to 50% is indispensable, desirable and doable.
• Dr Dube is a senior lecturer: school of education studies and programme head: foundation and intermediate phase at the University of the Free State
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