Mungo Soggot
Several government schools are now offering students the chance to sit A level exams as confidence in South Africa’s matric qualification declines.
State schools are joining the many private schools that have been providing courses for A levels for some time – usually for students planning to either study abroad or emigrate with their families.
The exam board responsible for most of the A levels taken in South Africa, the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, has a permanent office in Cape Town. The board’s local representative, Ray Howarth, estimates that 1 200 South African students will sit A levels this year, compared with 869 last year and 699 in 1997.
The six state schools that have joined the A level run are all in the Western Cape, but there are signs that schools from other provinces will follow their lead. Students take their A levels as well as matric, which is still required by government regulations.
Howarth says he wrote to all provincial departments about his plans to market A levels to state schools, but that only the Western Cape department, which is run by the National Party, replied. He nevertheless expects schools from other provinces to follow soon.
Howarth says he has even had talks with Afrikaans state schools keen to offer the exam. Apart from A levels, he markets three other types of English exams in South Africa, including the Advanced International Certificate of Education, a less specialised alternative to A levels.
Barbara Elion, a teacher who started an A level programme at a state school in the Cape, says she made the move after becoming “deeply disillusioned” with the matric system. She says she is perturbed by the marked improvement in grades awarded to matric examinees. “There is an embarrassing number of A grades. Where do they come from? What do they mean? Where once a very bright class only managed to achieve six As in English, now suddenly an A grade is fair game for anyone.”
A representative for the Ministry of Education said it had no objection to government schools offering A levels providing they complied with national regulations that oblige schools to run matric.
Howarth spends much of his time in neighbouring countries, as many of these take English exams.