On the surface, the matrics class of 2000 failed to disappoint when compared to the downward trend of recent years. However, beyond the results razzmatazz is the reality that at least another 500 000 adults have been unleashed into the real world, away from the innocent confines of the – sometimes carefree — classroom.
Of those successful in the examinations, only 68 626 obtained matriculation exemptions, earning with it access to a university education.
For many thousands of matriculants, the future looks bleak, as the unemployment lines in the country grow longer. But that should not be a deterrent to one from continuing with one’s studies at a technikon or technical college. The door to a successful future lies in studying towards skills that will enable one to contribute to the economy.
The fact that the over-all matric marks were a marked improvement on the previous year’s performance is little to make a song and dance over. Congratulations are due but after six years of democratic rule, which saw the merger of 19 separate education departments into a single unit without collapse, the improved results are to be expected. Why should the country receive anything less?
Until the matriculation examination as a barometer towards entry into society is scrapped, it is, sadly, the only yardstick to measure the success of the country’s schooling system.
The real test is not in trumpeting the new improved pass marks, it is in ensuring that the doors of learning are open without obstacles to the many thousands of educators and learners who toil in deplorable conditions, often in the grades below matric. One need cast an eye over the 1997 Schools Register of Needs which found schools, especially in rural areas, lacking even the most basic of needs.
If education is a basic human right, as the Constitution proudly states, then something had better be done — and quickly — about making the conditions at schools conducive to learning and teaching. The difficulties under which pupils in rural areas obtain an education are in most cases a violation of the country’s human rights-friendly charter.
Real life stories about children going to school on empty stomachs in poor townships of the Eastern Cape or KwaZulu Natal emerged during the Human Rights Commission and South African Non Government Organisation Coalition’s national poverty hearings two years ago.
Has anything changed for those children and their families?
As a matter of urgency, the gulf between urban former privileged and disadvantaged townships and rural schools should be bridged. Of course, parity will not be achieved overnight but it is up to the government to do something about making the township or rural schools which produced politicians, sports stars and entertainment personalities become learning centres of excellence again.
Furthermore, it is up to our politicians and personalities to show an interest in the schools, which helped shape their values and future career paths. It’s time people put something back into the schools system that made and moulded them.
Finally, prompt delivery of textbooks and stationery, better preparedness of educators, a more concerted effort from pupils and a greater interest in the education of their children from parents should rank high among the goals for teachers, pupils, parents and everyone involved in education in 2001.
– The Teacher/Mail & Guardian, Johannesburg, January 2001.