With the 2024 elections almost upon us, and with an expected change in government, this is an opportune time to put on the table clear and effective strategies for radically changing a school system stranded in a sea of mediocrity. No doubt this moment was on the mind of the Centre for Development Enterprise (CDE), when it released a powerful report titled The Silent Crisis with the urgent sub-title, Time to Fix South Africa’s Schools. A liberal, pro-business, independent think-tank, the CDE was slowly drifting into political obscurity until it produced a series of five compact, accessible and well-argued positions on the crisis and how to resolve it.
We already know, of course, that the performance of the school system is underwater, even in relation to poorer countries that spend less money than South Africa on the education of children. We know most of our children cannot read at the grade level and that the system is highly inefficient, losing half of the children between grades R and 12. And we know many of our teachers in the poorest schools lack sufficient knowledge on the subject and how to teach it. Then why is nobody in a panic about this silent crisis? In part because of an elaborate deception that sells the idea that because matric results tick upwards the school system is improving. In part because we do not have these kinds of analyses that remind the public that our education is in dire straits.
I still have nightmares about sitting on the apex academic science council, the Academy of Science of South Africa, and presenting our scientific work to one minister after the next.
Where the CDE goes wrong, is to assume that good data, solid research and rational argument will change the minds of this government. It will not. Policymaking in South Africa is overdetermined by politics and not by scientific reason. I still have nightmares about sitting on the apex academic science council, the Academy of Science of South Africa, and presenting our scientific work to one minister after the next. These scientific reports would range from climate change and poverty relief to public health and scholarly publications. After our presentations, 99% of the questions from ministers and their advisers would be about race and representation in our membership; it is always about the primacy of politics, never science.
Nor do I believe, as the CDE does, that the primary problem is corruption and state capture in education. Yes, there are provinces like KwaZulu-Natal, where you can buy a promotion post; there is a comprehensive report on the subject that the minister called for and then buried. But most provinces are not “captured” in their teacher appointments and promotions. Sadtu is a spent force these days, with their leaders ensconced and absorbed into positions of power within the ruling party. Why complain when you are being fed?
And I certainly do not believe the key problem is accountability. To hold teachers and principals to account you need to have political authority that can enforce it, and right now there is no appetite for setting high standards for teaching and learning, and holding educators accountable for results. Try enforcing even simple measures of accountability and you’ll have a revolt; still, under a new government, it is worth a try.
What does the CDE get right? The problem is indeed the quality of our teachers. This can be fixed by a post-2024 government in several ways. One is by putting student teachers into schools for 70% of the time under an excellent mentor teacher and only 30% of their time in university classrooms, the exact opposite of what is happening now. Another is to have standards-based outcomes for in-service teaching that every teacher should be tested for and meet within five- to seven-year cycles of personal accreditation.
The CDE is also right that we need new leadership in public education. It is not a mystery why our president returns the same ministers to the same jobs; these are simple political calculations. A coalition government can re-set these stale appointments and give us energetic and effective new leaders of the education portfolio who actually care whether children drown in pit toilets or that our schools come dead last or thereabouts in international tests.
Most of all, what the CDE gets right is the call for the public to “recognise the depth of our learning and teaching crisis”. Forget government, this is what we must all do with good research and solid evidence — show the public that the consequences of not resolving the crisis are severe for social cohesion, economic growth and political stability. I believe there is enough commonsense and goodwill in the public that the answer to the CDE’s closing question, “Are you prepared to condemn another generations of young South Africans to an appalling education?” will be a resounding no.
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