Nawaal Deane
Gauteng schools will soon receive guidelines on how to interpret official policy dealing with promoting to a higher grade pupils who have failed.
Teachers in the province are complaining that schools’ matric pass rates are dropping because the Department of Education has introduced a policy that pupils should be promoted to a higher grade after they fail a “phase” of schooling more than once. A phase consists of three years of study.
“Pupils who have already failed in a phase know that they don’t have to work and will be fast-tracked to the next grade,” says a high school teacher. Another teacher says there is a joke among learners that “you can fail yourself to matric”.
The fast-tracking was introduced in September 1999 in a directive sent by the Gauteng Department of Education to all schools, setting out criteria where learners should be promoted to a higher grade.
The directive is in accordance with the national policy on assessment. Minister of Education Kader Asmal says: “Learners generally are only allowed to repeat one year in each phase. If learners are not able to cope with the educational programmes in a given phase, a support programme for the learner needs to be put in place.”
The Gauteng education department says the directive was meant to assist pupils who transfer from other schools or have language difficulties.
Asmal says the aim of the policy is “to protect the academic progress of the learners and not to disadvantage them”.
But it is clear that teachers and district officials of the department are misinterpreting the policy. “The policy is pushing learners through the system rather than supporting them in the system,” says a teacher.
The directive has led to confusion among teachers. Some district offices have told teachers that a pupil who has been in a phase for four years should be “fast-tracked” to the next grade. Teachers say they have been instructed by district offices to write on the report cards: “Failed promoted for fast-tracking.”
But the department says this is incorrect: “The term ‘possible fast-tracked learners’ is not used in the circular [directive].” It says it is the district offices’ responsibility to interpret the directive correctly.
Matlakala Manota-Mookang, head of communications at the Gauteng education department, says: “Learners are not necessarily fast-tracked to the next grade. There are many factors that have to be considered to make such a decision. Fast-tracking should not be done in isolation.”
Teachers say the policy had a negative effect on last year’s matric results at some schools where fast-tracked learners failed the final examination. “How can we expect fast-tracked matriculants to pass the examinations when they have not passed the previous grades?” asks a teacher.
Teachers and education experts say the support structures for pupils who are not coping are inadequate. “How can we send learners to support services that do not exist?” asks a teacher.
The Gauteng department says it is the responsibility of schools to develop strategies for dealing with language difficulties. “The schools should through its school-based teams provide additional classes,” says Manota-Mookang.
The fast-tracked pupil receives no special attention and, in most cases, any form of remedial or support programme is a luxury that schools cannot afford. “One of our fast-tracked matriculants could not understand an examination paper and rewrote the questions instead of answering them,” says a teacher.
Salim Vally, a senior researcher at the Education Policy Unit at Wits University, says he has not studied the directive, but it might have been implemented to cut costs in the department. “We need to always look at what the department is trying to do, quite often it boils down to saving money.”
Asmal denies this, saying the department would not have a policy that is detrimental to learners.
The Gauteng department says: “The issue is not about costs incurred by repetition but the cost to learners who are retained year to year.”