Matric results ‘whitewashed to mask DBE failures’, say opposition parties

Following the long-awaited release of the 2020 matric results on Monday 22 February, opposition parties have reflected on the success of effort made by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to mitigate the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and – more broadly – the department’s ability to take South Africa’s education sector forward. 

Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced a 76% pass rate for the matric class of 2020, saying that the drop of around 5% from the previous year’s pass rate was in fact better news than she had expected given the mountainous obstacles that schools and their students faced. The Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) have both suggested that this contentment with the state of SA’s education system is far from acceptable though. 

Matric results ‘don’t paint the full picture’ 

FF Plus MP for Education Wynand Boshoff said that the matric pass rate discrepancy between state schools and independent schools is an issue that requires urgent attention, and bemoaned a system that seems satisfied with a status-quo characterised by inequality. 

“Provinces range from nearly 86% in the Free State to 66% in the Northern Cape. The average pass rate is 76,2%, which differs drastically from the 98% of the Independent Examinations Board (generally referred to as the IEB),” he said. 

“An honest observer may possibly be surprised that the pass rate did not plummet. It demonstrates, however, that everyone involved in education did their utmost to keep the disruption caused by the lockdown to a minimum.”

Boshoff said that the problem of inequality in the educational sector was exacerbated by the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, but added that the increase in good results – despite the overall drop in the average pass rate – means that “some schools fell behind as they could not keep up and adapt to the changing requirements”.

“Ultimately, the true test for a successful educational system lies not in good matric results, but in how well school-leavers perform in the economy or their post-scholastic studies. In that regard, there seems to be few, if any, signs of hope.” 

Education system in dire need of reform – FF Plus

Boshoff suggested that the DBE has not adequately adjusted school curriculums, nor advanced efforts to furnish state schools with infrastructure that would allow them to keep up with a rapidly changing world students are entering after they finish their school careers. 

“While the working environment has changed dramatically, it seems that in some aspects, education lacks the ability to adapt to these changes. And that is where the gap between successful and unsuccessful schools widens even further,” he said. 

“Some argue that the performance of independent schools, which far exceeds that of public (or state) schools, is the result of privilege. Such an argument, however, demonstrates ignorance seeing as independent schools frequently operate in environments where there is no access to state resources. To achieve a pass rate of 98%, all role players had to do their very best.”

He said that the FF Plus encourages communities to “take maximum control over their schools” and oppose “the centralising tendencies of the national and provincial departments”.

“Ties between schools with similar value systems must be established and strengthened, regardless of whether they are public or independent schools. In the end, the blame for poor education can be placed on anyone’s shoulders, but ultimately, it is the community that has to bear the consequences,” he said, adding that “the future may very well lie in removing education as far as possible from the state”.

Matric students poorly prepared to navigate ‘crashing economy’

Meanwhile, the DA instead on Monday that the 76% pass rate completely neglects to consider the students who didn’t make it to matric at all, and therefore posited that the “real” pass rate is closer to 44%. 

Baxolile Nodada, the DA’s Shadow Minister of Basic Education, said that while the remarkable efforts of students across the country to persist tenaciously in order to complete their studies are commendable, the DBE has a great deal of introspection to do. 

“For years, the South African education system has suffered from an overburdened curriculum that does not put the learners futures front of mind. Due to years of neglect of the educational system, many children have fallen out of the education system and have been forgotten,” he said. 

“Many of them face the prospect of a lifetime of inequality, poverty and unemployment due to the curriculum being irrelevant to the job market and industry because it’s not producing the right skills, and entrepreneurship and innovation are not being prioritised. And with the economy crashing and burning as we speak, even hard work is not a golden ticket to success.”

DA bemoan ‘wasteful spending’ by DBE

Nodada joined the chorus of opposition parties’ rejection of the current school syllabus and provision of critical infrastructure to struggling state schools, and said that far too much money is going to waste. 

“Gauteng spent R450 million on deep cleaning schools in the province and the Eastern Cape wasted more than R500 million on overpriced PPE. Surely this money could have been used to the infrastructure,” he said. 

“Teachers struggle to get the correct equipment to teach and there is a serious lack of mathematics and science teachers, with many educators teaching these important subjects not qualified to do so. The Accounting, Mathematics and Physical Sciences pass rates have all decreased, with Physical Sciences declining by 10%.”

He said that these are not symptoms of the hardships brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, but rather the result of years of neglect by the DBE in favour of “whitewashing” of matric results to “mask the department’s severe systemic failures”.