The improvement in matriculation results is a good thing. It is good for the self-confidence of the individual student. It retains the faith of the middle classes in public education. And it bolsters the spirit of a new nation still grappling with genuine change on many fronts. An eventual increase in matriculation results to a stable 80% to 90% pass rate is therefore highly desirable.
There can be little question that a small part of the improvement in the matriculation results is a direct consequence of an aggressive policy of surveillance by the Ministry of Education. There are few ministers of education in history that have taken such a sharp and intense interest in the matriculation performance of South African schools.
Schools are exposed and ridiculed if their performance is under par. On the other hand, schools are praised and rewarded if they show evidence of dramatic growth in matriculation passes. This political interest in scholastic performance is certainly one of the key ingredients required for ”turning around” the dismal history of schooling in South Africa. On the political front, well done. On closer inspection, though, a host of troubling questions should occupy the public mind.
For anyone with a rudimentary understanding of statistics, the sharp rise in matriculation passes in some provinces is bound to raise eyebrows. A more than 9% increase in one province alone asks the public to believe that in the limited space of 12 months, an entire body of 40 000 students — on average — scored 9% better than their counterparts in the previous cohort of matriculation students!
Let us assume, though, that every province submitted genuine results that represent a true reflection of every student’s performance in the 2002 matriculation examinations. How is it possible, then, for over 440 000 students to improve by more than 7% on the matriculation results of the class of 2001?
First, students receive marks for simply showing up and writing their names on the examination paper. There may be good reasons for this practice, but the fact remains that students who are not English first-language speakers, for example, will receive marks for that fact alone — irrespective of their actual competence in that language.
Second, students receive year marks that are adjustable once received from schools and provinces. In other words, the aggregate performance of a school or province can be improved or otherwise depending on what authorities do with the received year marks.
Third, the marks of all schools in a province are also adjustable to accommodate, we are told, variations in standards or performance from one matriculation year to the next. No doubt, government-sanctioned ”number crunchers” and politicians will claim immediately that there are sound statistical procedures for moderating results; the fact is, the adjustability of these results make them prone to the kind of manipulation that could, for example, push large numbers of marginal students over the basic minimum required for a pass, and make the entire system of education appear in very positive terms indeed.
More troubling though are the things that schools themselves do, under enormous political pressure, to boost their results thereby eluding negative publicity from politicians but also ensuring a steady stream of learner enrolments in the future.
One thing schools do, as we have seen in recent times, is to encourage — and sometimes enforce — the mass migration of learners from higher grade to standard grade subjects. This means the chances of passing are easier, and the school’s results would, therefore, appear more positive. What it means in practice is that the standards for education performance had just been lowered! Worse, learners who pass with a string of standard grade subjects now find themselves with a meaningless certificate that can secure neither meaningful employment nor entry into university education. Another thing schools do (and provinces sometimes require) is to eject ”repeaters” from the education system. The fact is that repeaters are very damaging to the aggregate school result for, having failed once, they tend to clog up the system and fail again.
Yet another wide-scale practice is to hold learners back in grade 11, so that only those with a good chance of passing in grade 12 actually make it to the final year of schooling. Taken together, these measures internal to the school ensure that matriculation pass rates are boosted and, in the process, the pressure relieved.
What should be the public response to these kinds of practices? First, do not confuse the rise in matriculation pass rates with a corresponding improvement in the actual quality of education at classroom level. No doubt, there has been a marginal improvement in the intensity of teaching and in the quality of learning. But this is nothing close to the spectacular results reflected in the average pass rates.
Second, since it is now so easy to pass the matriculation examination — in fact, failure requires a special effort — judge schools by the number of learners who pass with endorsement. This kind of scrutiny will force schools and provinces to deal with a far more genuine reflector of quality (endorsement or exemption) than simply this ridiculous race to pass students at any cost.
Third, judge schools by their performance in subjects critical to our emerging economy. For example, of the more than 440 000 learners who wrote the matriculation examination, only 35 000 wrote mathematics on the higher grade and only 20 000 passed the subject on this grade. I am also prepared to venture, by the way, that less than 5 000 of these students who passed are so-called African students, raising serious questions about our equity commitments.
Fourth, judge schools by their performance in the grades leading up to the matriculation year. Strictly speaking, matriculation results should reflect learning accumulated during 12 years of schooling, not one year of pressure-induced performance.
Fifth, parents in particular should be vigilant about the grade status of the subjects their children take in the latter years of schooling. Parents should actively participate in these decisions. If there is one thing that educational research is unequivocal about, it is this: when schools set high intellectual standards for learner performance, especially in poor communities, learners respond accordingly. The converse, unfortunately, is also true.
In sum, there are all sorts of benefits that accompany the improvement in matriculation results. But to attribute quality to quantity would be a serious mistake for consumers of public education and its products.
Jonathan Jansen is dean of education at the University of Pretoria