WORLDVIEW: Matric passes & the bigger truth about education in SA

By Felicity Duncan.In South Africa, matric results are a weirdly political and incendiary topic. Every year, opposition party members shout about a supposed conspiracy behind rising matric pass rates and members of the public grumble about alleged declining standards and political machinations..This year was no different, and the Daily Maverick has produced a worthy response to some of the prevailing myths about the matric pass rate that is well worth reading – author Nicky Roberts does a good job laying out the actual, empirical data about matric results in SA..___STEADY_PAYWALL___.Today, however, I wanted to address the questions around SA's schooling system from a slightly different, birds' eye perspective..First, it bears saying that all countries believe that their education system is falling apart. Pretty much since the idea of universal, compulsory education emerged in the 17th century, people have been lamenting its declining quality. In South Korea, which tops the global education ranks by most measures, parents worry about the failure to teach creative thinking and the excessive hours of work students must complete. Worrying about the failing education system is as much a part of modern life as traffic..Second, some of the biggest predictors of kids' academic success are things like parents' income and education levels. Having a bunch of books at home and a parent who was home in the evening to read to you as a child is just as important for your reading skills as going to a good primary school..In fact, some studies have found that if you control for demographic factors like parents' education and household income, the quality of a school has a very small effect on educational outcomes for its learners. In other words, the best way to improve education attainment is to eliminate poverty and give everyone educated parents. Much of SA's educational problems stem from parental poverty, rather than school quality..With those caveats in place, here's the bottom line about South Africa's education system:.It does not perform particularly well in global rankingsOverall, the trends in education in South Africa have been positiveSA showed the most significant improvement in maths and science outcomes in the world between 2003 and 2015Significant improvements in reading were also realised between 2006 and 2016Many schools (those in poor and historically black areas) struggle massively with a serious lack of resources and facilitiesMany schools (those in affluent and historically white areas) continue to perform wellThings have been equalising over the last ten years.There's no question that SA does not perform especially well on global rankings. This is completely unsurprising since, for about 50 years, the apartheid government systematically worked to ensure that the majority of South Africans were denied access to decent education and jobs..Apartheid has had a generational impact. Not only did the system of so-called "Bantu education" mean that many of the parents of today's children did not receive a good enough education to help their own kids with homework, it also meant that many schools and families were deliberately under-resourced and stunted..Turning this ship around was always going to be a long-term project. In 1994, many South African schools were effectively starting from where American schools were 200 years earlier – one building with no plumbing, one textbook for every 30 students, and plenty of parents who couldn't really read or write..Despite the enormity of the challenge, the data shows that South Africa has made major strides in education. Consider the country's performance on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS). TIMMS is a series of standardized assessments of students' maths and science knowledge that are administered to students around the world..According to the most-recent TIMMS report for Grade 9 South African learners, "Between 2003 and 2011, the mathematics and science scores improved by 67 and 64 points respectively. Between 2011 and 2015, the mathematics and science scores improved by a further 20 and 26 points respectively.."The highest gains were achieved at the lower end of the achievement distribution, which is indicative of reduced inequality. The results also show that when compared to other countries who participated in both the 2003 and 2015 cycles, South Africa has shown the largest change in performance.".The pattern for reading is a little more ambiguous. Data from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) indicates that SA is at the bottom of the ranks among the countries surveyed. However, comparisons with an earlier, slightly different version of the PIRLS shows that reading scores appear to have improved significantly between 2006 and 2011, before flattening out in 2016..The matric pass rate has also steadily improved – for a detailed breakdown of what that means, take a look at the Daily Maverick article..In other words, the data suggests that education in South Africa has been improving over the last ten years, not deteriorating. The real difference is that these days, we are all aware of just how bad some of SA's schools actually are. Twenty-five years ago, the poor quality of schooling most South Africans received was easier to ignore..None of this is to say that there are no issues with education in SA. Clearly, there are. Many schools desperately need significant capital infusions to build toilets, classrooms, and decent facilities. Teacher training and supervision need to be improved. Consumable supplies like textbooks, workbooks, lab equipment and so on must be universally available. Funding priorities must be re-examined – right now, spending favours higher education, which mostly benefits the already-wealthy, rather than primary and secondary education, which has the most impact on the poor. There's plenty of work to do..But universal education provision is challenging. The world's richest country, the USA, has problems with dilapidated, unusable school buildings, absentee teachers, and learners who come to school hungry and unable to concentrate..South Africa, which is starting from a deplorably low base and which systematically deprived millions of its people of education for generations, has a long way to go. But progress has been made. Instead of alleging political conspiracies around education and matric results, opposition politicians would do well to develop concrete plans to address the country's education challenges and work to help its learners.