SA’s schooling system promotes excellence at every level, despite what the doom-mongers say

Every year at this time, out of the woodwork pop bogus education “experts” who, despite the availability of free information and data, cast aspersions on South Africa’s schooling system in an attempt to grab headlines and enjoy airtime on radio and television.

They hop from one media outlet to another, regurgitating the same old stories of doom and gloom. What is baffling is the media’s keenness to give these “experts” airtime without probing their motives. 

The favourite topic of the “experts” is the minimum pass requirement.

The threshold of 30% and 40% has been explained on numerous occasions. If you have been living under a rock or somewhere else where such information is unavailable, it is a minimum level of achievement and is by no means the targeted level of achievement.

We have also been at great pains to explain that no learner will attain a certificate if they achieve 30% in all seven subjects taken at the Grade 12 level. This minimum level of achievement is to prevent learners who may not be able to perform at the required level in one subject from being held back simply because of that one subject.

South Africa’s schooling system, contrary to popular opinion, promotes excellence at every level, and we continually monitor the percentage of learners who attain distinctions and those who attain admission to bachelor studies. These, of course, are the higher levels of achievement in the system. Education is about taking the entire population of learners from where they are to the next level.

The National Senior Certificate (NSC), commonly referred to as matric, has enjoyed societal acceptance as South Africa’s premier schooling qualification and provides successful candidates with potential access to tertiary institutions and the world of work. The NSC not only enjoys local recognition but is recognised internationally and hundreds of our learners are studying at international institutions after using the South African matric as the admission qualification. 

Engineers, medical scientists, surgeons and the chief executive officers of large conglomerates are all products of the South African schooling system. They certainly cannot be the products of a “matric certificate that is not worth the paper it is printed on”.  

Three-stream model