Another year, another celebration of a meaningless number that adds no value to our education system except making a few politicians look good on stage.
Let's be clear: the so-called matric "pass rate" of 80.1% is a farcical, meaningless number made up by the basic education department that masks the deep and structural issues in our schools.
Instead of celebrating a false pass rate, we should be mourning the dropout of thousands of pupils who started their schooling journey in 2011. These kids are now part of our shameful unemployment numbers, especially under young people.
My criticism of the department's methodology takes nothing away from the success of those matriculants who passed and those exceptional schools, many defying the odds, who delivered excellent results. Congratulations to all of you, including your long-suffering parents who deserve a sigh of relief.
Let's interrogate the numbers released by Hubert Mweli, the director-general of basic education, and see if it brings us closer to the true picture of our matric results, that reflect the state of our public schooling system.
I'm not even going to talk about private schools today; the 98.4% national pass rate for their learners speaks for itself and confirms that South Africa remains a divided country where those with deep pockets can buy quality lives, while the poor remain at the mercy of the state's many failings.
In 2011, 1 177 089 children entered Grade 1 in the public schooling system. Already after year one, 102 301 children did not advance to Grade 2. We don't know how many of them failed and how many dropped out, but the deficit is huge.
The next big shift happened between 2014 and 2015, from Grade 4 to Grade 5, when 57 018 fewer pupils continued from the previous year. Mweli says this is because from Grade 4, children start to learn in English. If this is a well-known phenomenon, what is the department doing about children who simply cannot continue their education because their proficiency in their second or third language isn't good enough?
The number remains relatively stable until Grade 10, in 2022, when there were suddenly 173 492 more learners in this class group. According to the director-general this is explained by "gatekeeping of pupils not fit to proceed to the next grade".
I guess what he means is that a large group of children failed Grade 10 previously and were repeating the grade with the 2011 Grade 1 class. Of the Grade 10 group, 954 069 managed to proceed to Grade 11, but then something extraordinary happens.
Between Grade 11 and Grade 12, there is another massive drop off: from 954 069 to 775 630 learners, who made it to matric. This means 178 439 children - or almost 19% of Grade 11s - disappeared in one year from the system.
I asked around, and apparently it is well-known in education circles that schools are under strict instruction from provincial education departments to fail any Grade 11 pupil who may risk the school and the province's matric pass rate. I guess this is what Mweli referred to when he spoke about children "that are not fit for purpose".
I suspect there is no way back for you into matric if you were once branded "not fit for purpose" to pass Grade 12, and those almost 200 000 kids will have to find their way in life without that precious piece of paper called a National Senior Certificate.
Eventually, of the 1 177 089 children who were in the system in Grade 1 in 2011, 80.1% (or 621 280 learners) passed matric. Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga proudly trumpeted her 80.1% pass rate number and cast a shade over critics of the public schooling system at the announcement of the results last week.
The fact of the matter is that the 80.1% is only one small reflection of the success of our public education system as represented by the 2011 cohort.
If we went back to the Grade 1 number, less than 53% of pupils passed matric.
If we went with the Grade 10 number, when many learners would have dropped out of school to further their studies at TVET vocational colleges, the pass rate moves up slightly to 56%. But this is as good as it gets.
The 80.1% is a highly manipulated number, based purely on the raw Grade 12 numbers after a massive "culling" from Grade 11 of those "not fit for purpose". In fact, if Motshekga pressurises her colleagues in the provinces and teachers' unions even more to fail all their mediocre performers before Grade 12, she can possibly achieve a 100% pass rate in the not-too-distant future.
But it would be a pyrrhic victory, like the 80.1% that means nothing of value to assess and improve our education system.
Instead of celebrating a meaningless number, we should be seriously contemplating what it means that almost half of a Grade 1 cohort does not finish Grade 12 and if Motshekga and our current basic education system is still fit for purpose.
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