SACP Eastern Cape Statement on National Senior Certificate results
5 January 2016
The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Eastern Cape notes and welcomes the 2016 National Senior Certificate results as announced by Minister Angie Motshekga on 4 January 2017. We note that the Eastern Cape has moved from 56.8 percent in 2015 to 59.3 percent in 2016, a welcomed improvement of 2.5 percent which we must anchor our plans for future improvement on. The Eastern Cape has registered an increase on the Bachelor passes from 15 291 (17.6%) in 2015 to 15 654 (18.9%) in 2016. The province has also improved in cluster performance from 51.5 percent to 54.4 in Cluster A; from 55.5percent to 57.9percent in Cluster B; and improved from 62.7 percent to 65.1 percent in Cluster C.
We wish to congratulate all the learners who have made it and encourage all those who have not made it not to give up but make use of all available avenues to further their education. They must not take this as an end but the beginning of a new era. We also urge the parents and the society at large to offer their support to those learners.
We wish to appreciate the work done by all the stakeholders, the Department of Education, Teachers, Unions, Parents, School Governing Bodies, etc. We wish to welcome the employment of the Superintended General of the Department of Education as the department has been without the SG for a long time, and the improved relations between the department and the organised labour as one of the positive contributions in the National Senior Certificate outcomes. We wish to commend the teachers who work with commitment under the most difficult circumstances in the rural areas and townships. We are of the firm view that education is a societal matter and therefore requires all of us to work together in seeking solutions to our deep seated challenges in the education system.
We are of the firm view that these results should not be viewed as some competition of numbers and percentages between the provinces but as a comprehensive tool to asses our post-apartheid basic education system. We should all be alive to the reality that we are dealing with lives and most importantly with the future of our country.
These National Senior Certificate results depict a sad reality of the two pronged education system, education for the haves and education for the have-nots. This is evident in the fact that in the Eastern Cape 70 percent of the learners who were writing National Senior Certificate in 2016 comes from quintiles 1 - 3 schools and the high failure rate is in those schools and mostly in the remote rural areas. The quintile 1 is at 49.5 percent; quintile 2 at 55.9 percent and quintile 3 at 57.9 percent. The top achievers in the province are mostly from the quintiles 4 - 5, which most are former Model C schools and former missionary schools. The quintile 4 is at 81.5 percent and quintile 5 is at 95.3 percent.
The National Senior Certificate results also reflect our deep seated structural and systemic challenges imposed upon us in the Eastern Cape and other rural provinces by the apartheid colonial spatial planning, which was intended into sustaining the Eastern Cape as the reservoir of cheap labour. Most of the districts that have performed below 50 percent are from the most rural areas of the Eastern Cape.
As the SACP, we believe that a lot more still needs to be done to uplift the standard and the outcomes in our basic education as a whole. We believe that our focus should not be confined on the National Senor Certificate outcomes but to the entire basic education. For instance in the end of each year we should be receiving a full account of their entire cohort that started schooling in a particular year, in 2016 we should be getting account of all the learners who started Grade R in 2004 and Grade 1 in 2005. How many did start schooling in those years? How many got to the secondary schooling? How many did write National Senior Certificate? It is important that the foundation phase is integrated to the primary and secondary phases for coherent basic education. The transformation of the basic education as whole should also transcend to the transformation of the higher education, in particular the university entry requirements, as the current entry requirements continue to exclude the children of the working class.
We are of the firm view that government should do more in improving the conditions in the schools in the rural areas and township. Those schools should be turned around from being mere classrooms into being complete schools with all the necessary facilities to harness success.
We are of the strong view that the upcoming policy conference and ultimately the National Conference of the ANC should review the policy on the Post Provisioning Norms (PPN) as it disadvantages the children of the working class. The policy is the main cause of the shortages of educators and the closure of schools resulting to children travelling long distances having less time to study outside the classroom.
It is our considered view that the Department of Education must only focus on its core mandate which is teaching and learning.
It should not be overloaded with other responsibilities which require large procurements. These additional responsibilities have corrupted the department and invited some greedy political elements to target certain individuals in the guise of acting in the best interest of education, whilst they are chasing tenders. The responsibilities such as school nutrition, infrastructure, procurement of school furniture, etc. should be allocated to the relevant departments and let the Department of Education focus on education.
We wish to caution all in the movement to guard against these National Senior Certificate results being used as a tool to advance factional interests going to the conferences but to be used as an important measure to collectively asses our past and plan our future.
Issued by the SACP Eastern Cape
Contact:
Siyabonga Mdodi
SACP Provincial Spokesperson
Mobile: +2783 358 8070
Office: +2740 635 1046/42
Fax: +2786 286 1281
Facebook: SACP Eastern Cape
Twitter: @SiyaMdodi
