South Africa’s dismal student passing rates are putting the ruling ANC’s Outcome Based Education (OBE) into play as the stage is being set for this year’s national elections.
In the KwaZulu-Natal province alone, the matric pass rate has dropped to 57.8%, down from 63.8% in 2007. The nation-wide pass rate slid from 65% in 2007 to 62.5% percent in 2008.
Former University of Cape Town vice-chancellor and World Bank director Mamphela Ramphele blamed the plummeting pass results on the ANC’s OBE policy. “We must do away with outcomes-based education. It has failed our children,” Ramphele told a Cape Town education symposium. “I am prepared to march to parliament.”
Current education minister Naledi Pandor has declared that OBE “is here to stay” despite the failing pass rates. “[Scrapping OBE] will result in terrible problems, worse than those we have,” she said. “We can’t have another review. We must look at improved implementation.”
Meanwhile, the MEC for Education in KwaZulu-Natal, Ina Cronje, has appealed to political parties to not use the results as a ‘political football’. “I appeal to anyone who might be tempted to do so to desist from such infantile behaviour. It is the lives of our children, not mere statistics, we are talking about,” she said.
The political sensitivity surrounding the lowering pass rates showed a more sinister side last month, when teachers in KwaZulu-Natal were warned to not attend a political party meeting and rather “do what they are paid for”. The shocking directive came from the province’s education superintendent-general Cassius Lubisi, who warned teachers who did attended a meeting sponsored by the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union would be docked pay.
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The ANC government has again blamed the failing education system on "historical issues", ie. saying it is the fault of the Apartheid government.
I wonder when they will get tired of playing that card…
Maybe education in SA is failing because it never really worked!
I think you are thinking like sukrat, but I think you should cover the other side of the topic in the post too…
I think OBE is a good system but department of Education i think they must use graduates from the tertiaries institution because our Teacher they are not well equip and prepared for this system, so graduate can act as mentors to those teachers who are not equip