So here we are again, wrapping up another school year and longing for the holidays. The year-end exams are behind us and we all await the annual ritual of the matric pass-rates announcement. Which province will bask in the glory of first place? Which will be crowned with the dunce’s cap?
Provinces that traditionally limp in last in the matric exam race must be wondering what exactly their counterparts have that they don’t. Could it be the magic of Table Mountain or potent mystery minerals in the dry north — and what exactly do they add to the water in Gauteng and the Free State? Or perhaps these successful provinces simply are better — better organised and better funded, with better teachers and students.
But the loser provinces should consider that perhaps the key to glowing provincial matric results is also about being better at working the system. Because, in the end, matric statistics are manipulated by elaborate strategies designed to ‘hide” failures from the gullible public eye.
Such strategies include keeping weaker students back in Grade 11; pushing them out, before the matric exams, either into further education and training colleges or the workplace; or registering candidates on standard grade to improve the chances of a pass. But one tactic that seems to slip by almost unnoticed is enrolling full-time matric candidates as ‘part-time”.
In theory, the part-time category is for those who are doing just that — studying part-time. These would be people such as working adults or home-schoolers wanting to get a matric certificate.
In practice, the number of part-time candidates is swelled by students who have been studying full-time are writing six subjects, but who are deemed to be at risk of failing the exams. Rather than have their overall pass rates dragged down — and face the unpleasant attention this will bring — schools are effectively booting weaker students out of the equation.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Palesa Tyobeka, a deputy director general in the national Department of Education (DoE), publicly stated: ‘Matric candidates are being ‘hidden’ by schools. More are being nominated as private candidates, even though they are writing six subjects and are learning at those schools. But because schools don’t want to be judged as failing, they’re registering them as private candidates.”
Provinces also benefit from this practice. The overall provincial and national pass rates offered up with such fanfare each year only factor in the results of full-time candidates writing six or more subjects. The results of part-time candidates are not included.
An analysis of full-time and part-time matric enrolments over the past seven years shows that two provinces in particular favour this practice: Gauteng and the Free State. Gauteng has consistently enrolled about 40% of its candidates as part-time — which amounts to about 50 000 learners each year. This year, it leads the country with 42,45% (or 57 914 learners) enrolled as part-time.
The Free State has enthusiastically embraced the practice, setting a national record in 2001 with 49,7% matric candidates enrolled as part-time. This year, it’s down to 37,9%. It seems this provincial education department has responded — unlike Gauteng — to the DoE’s apparent dislike of the practice.
On the other hand, the Eastern Cape, which reliably performs badly, has never registered more than 21,5% as part-time candidates. Could it be that it also lacks the capacity to fiddle the system? Even Mpumalanga, often rivalling the Eastern Cape for last position in the matric stakes, has tried a few times — albeit using crude cheating methods that have been more easily exposed.
One obvious problem is that these more sophisticated strategies are intended to dupe the nation into believing all’s well with the education system. It is, therefore, a deliberate effort to reconfigure the truth into something more credible, a dressed-up lie for public consumption.
But, for me, there’s another far more important consideration. Learners who are genuine full-time students but enrolled for the matric exam as part-time candidates have to write the exam separately from their ‘full-time” peers, knowing that their teachers have disowned them because they are expected to do badly.
Worse still, they don’t benefit from a continuous assessment mark, built up through the year’s work — often a boost to students’ final result. These ‘weaker” matric candidates therefore only have one set of high-stakes, high-pressure exams to determine whether they are successes or failures.
The purpose of the education system is fundamentally to enable students to be the best they can be. Any actions by education authorities that work against this can only be condemned. If the system needs a dazzling public-relations exercise to shore up political ends, perhaps it should do something really spectacular — like ‘breaking the back” of illiteracy.
Enjoy your well-earned time off. But make the effort to act as if the matric results really are significant when you watch the announcement live on TV. It’s part of the national pretence, remember.