The schooling system is failing our children but teachers cannot fix it on their own.
They need help from parents and learners. That was the clear message that Sadtu president, Ntola, had for Numsa’s National Executive Committee (NEC) in May 2010.
The figures say it all. When the 2009 matriculants started grade 1 in 1998, there were 1.5million of them. By the time they got to matric, there were only 550 000 of them left.
Of those matrics that wrote the final exams in 2009, only 334 000 passed. That leaves 1.2million young adults who started school in 1998 with no matric.
The bulk of them “are not even in FETs (Further Education and Training Colleges), they are just on the streets!” said Ntola.
An even more chilling statistic is that in 2008, only 13% of Africans received a matric good enough to enter university.
(See box) The country is in desperate need of engineers, accountants, doctors, physiotherapists, company directors etc. It wants more African faces at higher skill levels but if not enough are getting into university, then the country cannot get off the starting blocks.
The reasons for this shocking performance he said were many. The main one was the unequal education system as a result of apartheid.
Most black schools had no libraries, no computers, poorly trained teachers, inadequate classrooms and no science labs – “our people did maths and science without even knowing a test tube”.
The extent of the problem is huge – to level the inequalities “we need R140bn, but we only have R5, 5bn!”
The way in which the education budget is allocated is just one obstacle preventing rectification of these inequalities.
Although South Africa spends just more than 6% of its GDP on education – more than most countries – 85% of this goes to pay teachers’ salaries.
This skewed budget impacts on things like classroom size. The average classroom size in township schools is still 40-50 – much greater than in the suburbs – and this badly affects the quality of the education taught.
The problem of failing in Grade 12 is that “learners have not been taught properly earlier. Foundation is critical,” he said.
Although Grade R is now compulsory, “teachers in Grade R are paid R1000 per month and often taught in garages!”
But Ntola also pointed fingers at human beings in the system – teachers, learners and parents. “Some teachers are not doing their work.
They are not at school and they are not on time”, but there is no consequence for this behaviour.
He called for better management in schools by principals and parents so that teachers “provide a quality service.”
He hinted that “at times we (Sadtu) are abusing our strength – we go on strike for a week and then we negotiate to get paid!”
Some learners must also take the blame. 9% of children in the age group 16-18 are not at school at any one time.
But he admitted that sometimes this was because of the poor quality of the teaching.
Parents too took a knock from him.
Teachers feel the role of parent is being pushed more and more onto them.
Sometimes it’s because parents are forced to work in the cities and leave their children to stay with grandmothers or relations.
Other times parents work long hours. Or they are just not interested in supporting or listening to their children’s problems.
Nor do they check whether their child actually attended school that day.
The result of all these problems shows in international tests carried out across more than 40 countries.
South African children came “right at the bottom in reading, writing and mathematics and science.”
In recent tests South African children performed worse than Botswana.
His big worry is in the future “there is a possibility that the country will be led by African people but those who are going to lead us are from those ex-model C schools where there is no ideology!”
Improving schools’ performance
Ntola was clear that the first priority must be to use the resources that they have better. He echoed president Zuma’s call to teachers in 2009: they “should be in school, in class, on time, teaching, with no neglect of duty and no abuse of pupils.”
And this was where he said there was a role for Numsa delegates – “if teachers are knocking off at 11h00, we need people like you to make a noise.”
But he said here they faced a major challenge.
Many Cosatu members (including Sadtu teachers and Numsa members!) have taken their children out of township schools because of the poor quality of teaching and into the suburbs or into private schools.
The majority of those that are left facing the extreme inequalities are children of the poor and the unemployed.
The NEC debated Ntola’s input and resolved to set up an education task team that will concentrate on the following issues:
• Sadtu to provide Numsa with a list of needy and underperforming schools in provinces. Numsa cadres to adopt a school or adopt a child in one of these schools and through the child, monitor the school.
• Where needy schools are not in line to receive funding from the education department, Numsa to take up a campaign and get Numsa-organised companies to adopt those schools and release resources. Service providers must also be targeted to provide resources.
• Numsa to work with Sadtu on how we realise the retooling of teachers and the culture of learning.
In 1984, workers joined hands with their children in a two-day national stayaway.
They were supporting their children’s fight for student representative councils, free books and schools and an end to corporal punishment. 26 years later we have won almost all these things but problems persist.
Zuma has called on “parents and communities to truly place education at the forefront of the national agenda”.
Are you ready for the challenge?
Figures from 2008 matric results
Race Wrote Passed Failed Passed: Proportion pass bachelor’s
African 460 828 260 765 200 063 61 889 56.6%
13.4%
Coloured 38 213 30 387 7 826 8 927 79.5%
23.4%
Indian/Asian 14 137 12 511 1 626 6 874 88.5%
48.6%
White 40 753 40 450 303 27 951 99.3%
68.6%
Total 554 663 344 794 209 869 106 047 62.2%
19.1%
Figures from Department of Education
Source
Numsa News no 2 2010