The much-decried “Bantu Education” system under Apartheid was better than what South Africa currently offers school children, a leading black academic has announced. Rabelani Dagada, author, Development Economist, Information Technologist and Knowledge Management Specialist based at the Business School of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, shocked attendees at a recent debate on the anti-white racism code-named “affirmative action” by telling them that the education currently provided by the black government had deteriorated to the worst in Africa.
“It (Apartheid education) was far better in terms of quality than the education that our kids are receiving nowadays, Dagada said. “After 20 years of democracy, the education levels have plunged. It’s worse than the so-called Bantu education.”
Dagada’s comments echo a 2010 report by Britain’s BBC reporter Hugh Sykes, who found a large number of blacks living in shanty-towns in South Africa who also complained that “Some things were better under apartheid.”
Dagada, who has achieved all sorts of awards and honors, has good reason to be pessimistic.
Of the 1.1 million black children who were born in 1994 and later entered first grade, fewer than half made it far enough to take the final school graduation exam.
Of those who did, the percentage who passed was 73.9%, up from 70.2% in 2012. But this figure hides the fact that the passing levels are little short of moronic.
Students in South Africa must pass six to earn their diploma, called a National Senior Certificate. However, in order to pass, they need only to receive scores of 40% on three exams and 30% on three others.
“I find it hard to get excited over ” results,” tweeted the editor of South Africa’s Financial Mail magazine, Barney Mthombothi. “As long as pass mark is 30% we’re fooling nobody but ourselves.”
As the far leftist Mail and Guardian newspaper in Johannesburg commented: âThe measure of a successful education is whether students are leaving school both literate and numerate, and are able to learn new skills as they enter the work force, or learn new concepts once they enter higher education. It’s doubtful whether a student with a 35% average would be successful on any of those counts.
The Mail and Guardian went on to explain that even these poor results had been artificially boosted with what is known in South Africa as mark adjustments.
This practice of âmark adjustments works like this, according to the Mail and Guardian: âEach year the state’s quality assurance body Umalusi analyses the results to ensure they are kept in line with the previous year’s performances. If needed, the raw marks are adjusted to remove inconsistencies that might creep in during the examination process or due to external factors.
Recently, it was reported that only 5% of black and colored students who enter higher education (university level in South Africa) complete their studies.
The collapse in South African educational standards was dramatically revealed in what was described as a ‘candid affidavit’ by the head of the Eastern Cape education department filed in court in response to a legal case.
According to the affidavit, made by head of department Mthunywa Ngonzo, his department is an utter failure, with no decision-making capability, poor leadership and no financial controls.
He said that it was this sorry state that prohibited the department from filling thousands of vacant posts for teachers.
Other admissions by Ngonzo include:
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The department has been characterised by challenged leadership and governance for the past 16 years, with 13 heads of department, six MECs [political chiefs] and multiple chief financial officers;
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* There are poor or nonexistent financial controls;
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*The department has never had appropriate or fully functional decision-making structures;
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* It lacks information on how many teachers it employs and what their qualifications are; and
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The province has one head office and 23 district offices, 13 of which are dysfunctional.
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The chaos is not limited to that province. Last year, more than 5000 school textbooks were found dumped in Majeje, in the Phalaborwa region. Spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Ronel Otto said the books were dumped in an open veld and were in a good condition.
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The between 5,000 to 6,000 books range from Grade 0 to Grade 9 for various subjects, Otto said.
Some grades in Limpopo received textbooks seven months after the school year started, while others were still waiting.
The real reason for the collapse in education is of course, racial. According to all objective tests, the average IQ in South Africa is 66 for blacks, 83 for Indians, 82 for ‘Coloreds’ (mixed race) and 94 for whites.