The Department of Education has announced that the next and necessary phase of its futuristic policy will be introduced on a trial basis during the second half of this year.
The new phase is called Incomes-Based Education (IBE) and will be exactly what it sounds like. The more the learner pays, the more the learner gets taught. The intention behind the idea is to stimulate learners to place more value on their education than they currently do.
‘Education is in danger of becoming taken for granted,” said a spokes-mistress for the department. ‘Far too much emphasis on practical democracy has led learners to believe that being educated is something that is their inalienable right. Although this might be so, it does not mobilise learners to respect their education as much as they respect the cellphones and iPods that they or their parents have had to pay for. When something costs money, it is quite natural for you to value it more.”
The idea behind this new system of education springs from ancient legal practises. In Roman times, advocates would only argue the cases of their clients for as long as the money lasted. If an advocate suddenly stopped arguing, sometimes in the middle of a sentence, the client would have to rush up and feed more coins into the vast pocket-shaped flap at the back of the advocate’s gown. When he felt the coins go in, the advocate would continue his argument until he felt he’d used up the money. The vast pocket is still designed into traditional advocates’ gowns. The tradition is kept alive by today’s advocates, who continue to argue for only as long at the money lasts. Advocates still operate like disputatious parking meters.
IBE follows the same ancient principle. Learners under IBE rules will have to pay in advance for their lessons. Small pay-booths will be installed at schools so that learners will be able to pay in advance for each day’s instruction. If a learner feels he or she is coping well with, say, the English curriculum, that learner will pay for two or three extra maths lessons in one day; maths being a subject where a learner feels he or she needs extra coaching. This will ensure that a balance of skill and understanding is kept across all subjects, producing an all-round excellence. Learners will not merely be good in English and life skills and disastrous in maths and science, as is often the case in standard education practises.
The pay-booths will be personed by outside staff, thus creating many new jobs.
Payment options will be designed to motivate learners and their parents. On offer will be so-called ‘Learner’s Specials”, which offer discount rates for those prepared to pay in advance for a whole session of lessons. A typical ‘First Term Learner’s Special” would offer 10 45-minute maths lessons, for the price of eight. ‘Learner Bouquets” of lessons across the curriculum will be offered at discount rates. Small inducements will also be offered to learners who commit to these longer bouquets. A 144-lesson bouquet, covering six subjects a day for 24 days, would qualify the learner signing up for it for a free DVD player, beginners Playstation or credit-time at department-approved teenage entertainment malls.
Long-term financial terms will be made available to those learners and parents who cannot afford to buy the longer term offers outright. Nominal interest rates will be charged. Cross-subject coupons will be made available, redeemable for lessons in any approved subject.
An added benefit of the new system is that teachers will be granted a small percentage of the fees paid for the lessons they give. This will inspire normally fatigued and lethargic teachers to brighten up their lessons, and make learning under them a pleasure for all. The more popular a teacher is among the learners, the more money will end up in that teacher’s pocket.
Learners will be allowed to buy lessons at any public school they like, but desk space will be on a first-come-first-taught basis.
As was to be expected, savage criticism has come from the Democratic Alliance. The DA education spokeswhinger, Sheherazade Amrietta-Rademan, said that the education department was introducing a system that would further disadvantage learners coming from both the lower income groups and the desperately poor. Those learners with well off parents would, in effect, be able to ‘buy off” their educations. This was not democratic as the DA defines democracy, added Amrietta-Rademan.
‘This sort of thing,” said Amrietta-Rademan, ‘is typical and shows that the African National Congress–controlled education department’s policies are not only myopic but shortsighted as well.”
The education department responded by saying that IBE only places at advantage those learners with parents who have made financial and social successes of their lives, thus subtly promoting a superior genetic strain among the population. ‘This is BEE taken to its logical conclusion,” said the education department spokesmistress. —