Schools crying out for help

This generation will face matric with severe disadvantages

IT seems South Africans prefer their bad news as a shock rather than a wake-up call. The Limpopo textbook crisis was one such shock. The recent annual national assessments - which revealed the Grade 9 national maths average to be 13% - were another.

We are seriously in trouble. This generation will write matric without the maths skills required, and will struggle to read and write in both home language and in the language of teaching. Despite our deepest wishes, there is no quick solution.

Solutions are indeed multi-faceted. They need to combine a number of levels simultaneously, and are sadly long term. The closest we can be thinking is surely 2030? This is the starting point of the National Planning Commission's take-off for SA. Meanwhile, maths scores for Grade 9s in places like Limpopo are shockingly low.

A second bad tendency of South Africans is that we beat ourselves up. Of course we must look facts in the face; we need to know when we are in trouble. But the assessments reveal some progress. In the very lower grades, below Grade 3 and sometimes 5, our maths and reading results are improving dramatically. Things in education are a mixed picture, often gloomy, but in some cases, getting better.

The assessments are doing what they are supposed to: pointing out to us where we need to improve and what is going wrong where.

Maths results at Grade 9 are clearly abysmal. Where will our country get tomorrow's scientists to run the Square Kilometre Array telescope or discover a cure for malaria? Where will the accountants, doctors and engineers come from to develop and implement plans for a new, more ordered and growing democracy?

It needs to be added that even in the top decile or richest 20% of schools, only about 23% are doing OK in maths. So, even the best are struggling despite the many great inequalities. There is little to write home about.

For these reasons, without being a Pollyanna, we need to take a few deep breaths. All over the world, education is seriously in trouble. Even educated people, many with doctorates, are unemployed.

We can take a few breaths and ask what education is for, in our country, in our context, given our circumstances. We don't need to import what we think is the best from other parts of the world: outcomes-based education was one such mistake. At the same time, we must learn from others.

Fixing the assessment scores will require more than a few technical solutions. Yes, these are required. We need to get the experts together. But more than that, we need to ask the deep questions - for example, why aren't our kids doing maths or science and how can we get teachers to do what they are supposed to do?

Amid our real depression and gloom, we need to analyse. The World Economic Forum puts us right at the bottom of league tables; but at least it is using our own figures. At least we are facing up to the facts. Our whole education system needs to be fixed; the whole toxic mix needs to be cleared up. It won't be easy.

South Africans certainly need to compete and be the best. No one is going to feel sorry for our poor circumstances or our history of underserviced schools. In 1976, fully three-quarters of young kids never got beyond primary school. There were no annual national assessments, no one even cared. Shame!

The world has moved on, Russia, China and Brazil are not waiting for us to catch up.

This applies not only in the hard sciences and high-end skills, but in the humanities and vocations too. How do we interpret the transition? Where are the poets and musicians to hold us together? We can overcome our history, if we get it right, if we act in time. Schools, government and communities need to come to the party, now.

Of course, teachers are in the front line. Too many appointments happen on spurious grounds. There is too much despair. Teachers will have to lead the new liberation struggle for knowledge and skills, for jobs and social cohesion. Teachers have done it before; it is not a blame game. Yet teachers cannot only fight for immediate gains through their unions. Like students, we expect more from this generation, and for them to rise to the challenge of the times.

Of course, too, officials and government must rise to their tasks and do what we pay them to do: get to know their schools, ensure adequate conditions for teaching and learning, provide support that is needed. Government will have to deliver - only 7.5% of children are in private schools.

Ex-model C schools must explain what they are doing about transformation, how state-funded schools are meeting the challenges of new and shifting numbers, as pupils look for good schools. What are the problems and difficulties in breaking the apartheid barriers - through negotiation, surely we can find solutions?

Of course, too, old inequalities will have to be addressed. Too many children are hungry or cannot see the blackboard, because there are no basic eye tests or health screenings. Coordinated delivery is indeed the hardest; but even just building labs, sports fields, libraries, staff rooms, and all the needs of a school will take much combined effort and some money. Never throw money at a problem, sure. But understand that it will cost in the end. I suspect South Africans are willing to pay, especially to give all our children a chance.

So the trite reminder is that we will all have to work together. Fixing schools is not an overnight task. We cannot simply hand it over to government - at the least, officials and politicians need ongoing public pressure and lessons in how to build partnership among equals.

Nor can we hand all tasks over to business: while they have much to contribute, imagine banks or cellphone companies trying to teach our kids about delivery or about ethics! Fixing our schools is surely an all-in process.

We all have responsibility - as citizens and employers. Does our domestic servant's child have a space to study and good lighting?

Are we going back to our old schools to show how to get ahead? As businesses, are we mobilising our profits to fix things or only looking for ribbons to cut?

As teachers, as principals, as parents, what are we doing to make school a better place, a safer place, a nicer place to spend your day and learn what you need to know?

The assessments show that our kids are not getting it. Fixing our education, improving reading, writing and counting skills from the Foundation phase, is absolutely urgent.

It is a hands-on, committed, and hard slog. We need to get started, now.

• Bloch is a senior researcher at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra) and visiting adjunct professor at the Wits School of Public and Development Management. He is writing in his personal capacity