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Millennium Development Goal for primary education
According to the Millennium Development Goals Report 2007 by the United Nations, progress has been made with regard to achieving universal primary education by 2015. The net enrolment ratio in primaryeducation in developing regions increased from 80% in 1990 to 88% in 2005. Nonetheless, an unacceptably high number of 72m children of primary school age were not in school in 2005 – 57% of them were girls. Although sub-Saharan Africa has made significant progress over the last few years (ie, from a primary school net enrolment ratio of 54% in 1990 to 70% in 2005), it still trails behind other regions, with 30% of its children of primary school age still out of school. The report states that ‘a strong push will be needed over the next few years to enrol all children in school and to fulfil their right to a quality education’. The children most likely to drop out of school, or to not attend school at all, are those from poorer households or living in rural areas. For example, 31% of children of primary school age in rural areas of the developing world were still out of school in 2005, compared with 18% of children in the same age group living in cities. Girls are still excluded from education more than boys, a pattern that is particularly evident in Western and Southern Asia.
The report also notes that primary school attendance by over-age children is very common in some regions, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where more children of secondary school age are attending primary school than secondary school. ‘Though late enrolment is better than not enrolling at all, it represents a challenge for the education system and reflects the difficulties families face in sending their children to school. Late enrolment also puts children at a disadvantage by causing potential learning problems and lessening opportunities to advance to a higher level of education.’ Data shows that children who start school at least two years later than the official age are more likely to be from poorer households and have mothers with no formal education.
Education and poverty reduction
It is generally agreed that education leads to accelerated human development, poverty reduction and sustained economic growth. Education also improves health and nutrition, benefits personal health and empowers girls in particular. This has spin-offs for better reproductive health, lower child mortality rates and improved welfare through better nutrition and higher immunisation rates. Education may be the single most effective preventative weapon against HIV/AIDS. It is also argued that education increases productivity and earnings. Research has shown that globally, every year of schooling translates into increased individual income of about 10%. In poor countries, the gains are even greater.
Unemployment among young South Africans
According to official statistics from the Labour Force Surveys, the strict unemployment rate for young people aged 15-24 in 2006 was 50.2% – almost double the general unemployment rate of 25.5%. In addition, more young people are discouraged from seeking work than people in any other age group. If those who are no longer looking for work are included, the unemployment rate for young people rises to65.2%, compared with the general unemployment figure of about 38%. What is more, the burden of unemployment falls disproportionately on young blacks/Africans. In order to generate improved information that will deepen knowledge about unemployment among young people in South Africa, the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) conducted research on employment histories and unemployment. The retrospective survey, conducted between July and November 2006, was based in three sites (ie, Johannesburg, eThekweni and Polokwane) and traced the histories of 1 000 young people aged 20-35 from their 15th birthdays onwards. The main findings of the survey are as follows:
- The survey fully confirms the high unemployment rates recorded by the official Labour Force Surveys. In Johannesburg, 56% of young men aged 15-24 are unemployed, while in eThekweni the figure is 66% and in Polokwane 65%. Unemployment among young women stands at 65% in Johannesburg, 68% in eThekweni and a staggering 88% in Polokwane.
- Although in most healthy economies there is a significant job mobility among young people as they experiment with jobs until they find those that best suit them, in South Africa young people hold on to their first jobs for as long as they can, and only a small minority leave them voluntarily to look for other jobs better suited for their talents and aspirations.
- Most young people prefer to be formally employed rather than self-employed, as they perceive the latter option as very risky.
- Race, gender and place matter when it comes to unemployment among young South Africans. Young blacks/Africans tend to be jobless for longer periods than young people of other races; young black/African women are jobless for longer than young men; young black/African women without a senior certificate or equivalent are jobless for longer than those with better educational qualifications; and young black/African women in more remote parts of the country are jobless for longer than those in urban areas.
The study suggests that in order to improve the employment prospects of young people and young blacks/Africans in particular, policy-makers should:
- Work to achieve higher rates of economic growth to absorb more young people into the formal economy.
- Dramatically improve education and training and look at how counselling can improve job preparedness so that young people develop a realistic assessment of their capabilities and the realities of the labour market.
- Make it easier for young people to find jobs through job search assistance by, for example, providing fax, Internet and photocopying facilities.
- Reduce the tax, regulatory, infrastructure and crime barriers that hamper the development and survival of small businesses and deter young people from creating new enterprises.
- Significantly enlarge the existing ‘expanded public works’ scheme and link it to economic reforms that will measurably reduce unemployment.
Denel Youth Foundation Training
Public Enterprise Minister Alec Erwin has welcomed an initiative by state-owned arms developer Denel, to train young people in the areas of mathematics and science. The Denel Youth Foundation Training (DYFT) seeks to address the shortage of learners with maths and science by offering a second chance to
matriculate with maths and science on higher grade. Minimum entrance requirements into the programme are a Grade 10 education with mathematics and science as school subjects.
General Household Survey 2006
According to the results of the General Household Survey 2006, 13.28m learners were at school in 2006, with an additional 1.56m learners in pre-school institutions and a further 0.6m students at university or technikon. Among learners aged 7-15 years, school attendance rates increased from 96.3% in 2002 to 97.9% in 2005, followed by a slight decline to 97.7% in 2006. The percentage of learners aged 7-24 who were not attending an educational institution because of a lack of money or fees declined from 39.6% in 2002 to 37.4% in 2005, followed by an increase to 38.6% in 2006. Statistics on the levels of educational attainment among people aged 20 and above indicate that there was a slight improvement over the 2002-2006 period: the percentage without formal education declined from 12.1% in 2002 to 10.7% in 2006, while the percentage with matric increased from 21.1% to 23.9% over the same period; the percentage with tertiary education increased from 9.1% in 2002 to 9.8% in 2005, followed by a decline to 9.2% in 2006.
$100 laptop production begins
Five years after the concept was first proposed, the so-called $100 laptop is poised to go into mass production. Hardware suppliers have been given the green light to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines. The first laptops should be ready to put into the hands of children in developing countries by October 2007.
Assessing learner ability
The education department is conducting a second round of large-scale assessments of Grade 3 and 6 learners’ abilities, to determine whether there had been any improvement. The previous round of socalled systemic evaluations of Grade 3 and 6 pupils showed that the South African school system left much to be desired, revealing, for instance, that about 60% of Grade 6 learners were not able to read at the level at which they should and 80% were not achieving 50% or more in a Grade 6 mathematics test.
The assessments would be carried out over two months in about 3 000 schools, serving more than 60 000 Grade 3 and 6 learners. The schools have been randomly chosen from all nine provinces and standardised tests would be administered in these schools by trained assessors. The Grade 3 results are to be reported as part of the three-yearly systemic evaluation process, while the Grade 6 results will be fed into the international Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality process, which measures education quality in southern and eastern African countries.
Professionalisation of school principals
As part of an initiative by the department of education to professionalise principalships and reclaim the status once attached to the position, the first group of 400 school principals has been enrolled for the South African National Professional Qualification for Principals. Participating principals’s feedback will be decisive in the further development of the qualification, which will be rolled out formally from 2009 and will be a compulsory requirement for any person wanting to be a principal. The first intake of principals is spread across five higher education institutions, which met the preparation criteria set by the department and registered the qualification timeously with the Council on Higher Education. They are the University of Pretoria, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the University of the Western Cape, the University of Cape Town and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. In addition to the school principals’ qualification, the department is developing a range of national courses for serving principals with a particular focus on curriculum management; these courses will be experiential.
School fees
Landmark legal action occurred in June concerning school fees. Following an application to the Durban High Court brought by Wits University’s Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals) and two single, unemployed mothers of pupils attending Hunt Road Secondary School, an order interdicts the school from proceeding with any debt actions instituted against parents for unpaid fees unless it can show that those parents would not have qualified for exemptions. The school is also required to write to all parents informing them of the exemptions policy and inviting them to apply, as well as to process all applications received and advise parents who are refused exemptions of their right to appeal and how to do this. The case highlights the legal framework’s failure to provide for compensation to schools who do grant exemptions. The attorney for Hunt Road Secondary School said he did not think the school would survive: ‘The combination of the school’s inability to collect outstanding fees and underfunding from the KwaZulu-Natal education department is going to have a devastating effect on the school.’ The education department has revealed it is now working out how to compensate schools for fee exemptions. The larger issue of free education was discussed at the ANC policy conference at the end of June. Department of education director general Duncan Hindle said: ‘The key debate is whether to adopt a horizontal split, to provide (for example) free primary schooling for all, even the rich, or a vertical split, to support the poor at all levels of the system.’
Fewer Setas?
Speaking at an Information Systems, Electronics and Telecommunications Technologies Seta graduation ceremony in Johannesburg, labour minister Membathisi Mdladlana confirmed that his department was considering reducing the number of sectoral education and training authorities (Setas) in SA. Pointing out that: ‘At the time we established Setas there was no industrial policy (for the various sectors). Now there is,’ he said there is a need to review the way some of the Setas were structured – resulting in duplication of responsibilities. He cited the example of security and finance sectors which have up to three and five Setas respectively. He also stated that the legal existence of the Setas would not be tampered with until their mandate expires in 2010. These remarks came in the wake of recent media claims that the CEOs of SA’s 23 Setas would lose their jobs. The minister has already slimmed down SA’s Seta complement from 25 in 2000 to the current 23 and it is commonly accepted he has been frustrated with some Setas’ failure to accelerate the implementation of skills development. Other concerns being discussed by government include issues regarding whether further education and training colleges were properly equipped to train the artisans the economy needed and whether the decision to merge technikons with universities had been a good one.
The aftermath of the teachers’ strike
Opinions are mixed about the effects that the month-long public service strike – the largest and longest in SA’s history since democracy – could have on educators, learners and education in general. According to Prof Crain Soudien, director of the education faculty at the University of Cape Town, ‘Of course, any kind of disruption is fatal and (many schools, especially in disadvantaged areas) are already in a state of fragility.’ However, Prof Lesley le Grange, chairman of the curriculum studies department in Stellenbosch University’s education faculty, points out ‘the basic stuff should be in place. If so much depends on one month, it’s an indictment on the system as a whole but I think if the matric results are down 3%-5%, people will blame it on the strike.’ According to Dr Nick Taylor, CEO of JET Education Services, a nongovernmental organisation that aims to improve the quality of education in South African schools, ‘The hardest hit will be … the poor black schools that do really well and there are about 500 of them. That’s the way – the poor always suffer.’ Meanwhile, a tussle has emerged between teacher unions and education department officials over whether teachers can be paid for the extra work (and how much they should be paid) they will now have to do in respect of recovery plans.