Blame game as report says education picture particularly bleak in the Eastern Cape

31 May 2016 - 14:47 By Lee-Anne Butler
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Education the Eastern Cape is in deep trouble‚ with almost three-quarters of children not even being taught the bare minimum when it comes to the curriculum‚ a comprehensive fresh study has warned.

One of the most shocking findings is that there is a national reading crisis‚ as about 60% of children have not learnt to read in any language by the end of Grade 4.

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The detailed report by the University of Stellenbosch – commissioned by the government and which looks at the national picture – has found the majority of poor pupils who cannot afford to attend former Model-C or independent schools are trapped in a cycle of poverty.

  • DA wants human rights probe for schools where no matrics passedAlmost half of the 12 of the 22 schools that obtained a 0% pass rate are in KwaZulu-Natal‚ the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday. 

Some of the glaring problems identified include undue union influence in some provinces‚ weak teacher knowledge and skills‚ as well as wasted time and insufficient opportunity to learn.

Another challenge is that only 53% of pupils nationally had covered the bare minimum of exercises required for curriculum coverage.

The picture is particularly bleak for the Eastern Cape.

While 85% of Gauteng pupils and 76% of Western Cape pupils had completed the minimum of exercises per month‚ only 27% of pupils in the Eastern Cape had done so.

Equal Education Eastern Cape co-head Luzuko Sidimba said the findings reflected the reality of what was happening.

“Pupils in Grade 4 still cannot read and count – but what is the department doing about this?” Sidimba asked.

“There needs to be an integrated plan.

“Also‚ what is the reason for this? The lack of resources would be my assumption.”

Sidimba also questioned whether the department provided enough support to teachers when changing the curriculum‚ saying more training was required.

Education expert Professor Susan van Rensburg said: “Our province receives enough finances‚ but you often hear about money not being spent due to other challenges.

“We have an administration problem and a lack of good senior management at the department. Things should be changed from the top.”

Van Rensburg also believed the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) exerted pressure on the system by influencing principal and teacher appointments.

“Many times‚ you find a child being moved from the Eastern Cape to the Western Cape and then starting to pick up in terms of their schoolwork‚” Van Rensburg said.

“There are simply better controls in other provinces‚ things that are lacking here.”

Sadtu spokeswoman Nomusa Cembi disagreed with the report’s finding on undue union influence.

“It is becoming fashionable to blame Sadtu for all the ills in the education system‚” Cembi said.

“As Sadtu‚ we are teachers who are trying to do our best with limited resources. “Sadtu is not to blame for poor sanitation‚ overcrowding and the lack of resources in schools.”

Cembi said Sadtu was not putting any undue influence on the system as it did not determine teacher salaries.

“It is known there are not enough teachers and this is why classes are overcrowded‚” she said.

“However‚ there are nine MECs in the country and in each of their departments there are huge staff complements with huge salaries and sky-high benefits.”

Regarding the finding that teachers lacked content knowledge‚ Cembi said the union provided opportunities for its members.

The report is titled “Identifying Binding Constraints in Education” and is based on detailed research by the economics faculty at Stellenbosch.

It was sponsored by the Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development.

One example used in the report to indicate how a province’s education system relies on its province-level functionality is how‚ after 2005‚ some schools were moved due to the changes in provincial boundaries.

“For example‚ 29 schools moved from the North West [a traditionally under-performing province] into Gauteng [a traditionally better-performing province]‚” the report said.

“The researchers found that for those schools moved to a more functional province there were significant improvements in matric results within five years.”

It also said there was increased concern among academics and practitioners regarding the influence exerted by trade unions‚ specifically majority union Sadtu‚ and how it was interfering with the ability of the system to act in the best interests of the children.

The report suggested that many teachers lacked basic content knowledge and theoretical and practical skills.

“These teachers are highly concentrated in the poorest four quintiles of schools‚ suggesting that inadequate teacher content knowledge in poor schools perpetuates a cycle of poor educational outcomes for students‚ further entrenching their poverty and weak labour-market status‚” the report said. It recommended‚ among other things‚ increasing the calibre of school principals‚ stabilising early childhood development and the better use of data to eliminate under-staffing in primary schools.

Provincial Education Department spokesman Malibongwe Mtima referred questions to the national department.

Its spokesman‚ Elijah Mhlanga‚ said: “Poverty is a national problem that cannot be confined to the education sector in the Eastern Cape only.

“The whole country is facing huge challenges of unemployment and for as long as the country is unequal‚ our education system will reflect [the] same.”

Mhlanga said the department’s annual national assessments also reflected the report’s findings on low numbers of Eastern Cape pupils completing the minimum number of exercises required for curriculum coverage.

“Weak content knowledge among our teachers is a challenge that has already been dealt with by the department as well as the Council of South African Educators‚” Mhlanga said.

There were various initiatives under way to improve this‚ including those done in conjunction with the Department of Higher Education and Training‚ he said.

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