When one looks at the headline statistics of the 2014 local National Senior Certificate examinations, one’s initial impression is that the City experienced its best set of matric results of the past few years.
When one looks at the headline statistics of the 2014 local National Senior Certificate examinations, one’s initial impression is that the City experienced its best set of matric results of the past few years.
In particular, the nine public schools in Grahamstown achieved a combined pass rate of 72,8%, which is only 3% lower than the 2014 national rate of 75,8%.
In addition these schools together achieved a total of 193 ‘Bachelor’ passes (this refers to the minimum requirement for a student to study towards a Bachelor degree at university), which is higher than the number reached in recent years.
These are significant achievements and the citizens of Grahamstown have every reason not only to heave a collective sigh of relief (that the steep performance declines of the past two years have been reversed) but also to congratulate the learners and the entire public schooling community for their successes in the 2014 examinations.
Some of the advances should be elaborated in more detail.
First, consider that Grahamstown City languished almost 18% beneath the national pass rate in 2013. Its improvement from 60,5% to 72,8% in 2014 constitutes an improvement of 15% against the national benchmark (given that this dropped by 2,4%).
Second, it is important to understand how and why the City’s pass rate improved to the extent that it did. There are essentially two reasons for this:
• The proportion of candidates at the three fee-paying schools (Graeme College, Victoria Girls' High School and Hoërskool PJ Olivier) increased relative to the proportion of candidates at the no-fee schools (Nombulelo Secondary School, Nathaniel Nyaluza Secondary School, Ntsika Secondary School, TEM Mrwetyana High School, Mary Waters High School and Khutliso Daniels Secondary School). Because local fee-paying schools perform significantly better than no-fee schools, the fact that the proportion of candidates at the former in 2014 increased relative to the latter translated into an improved City pass rate. In this regard, it is notable that VGHS delivered its 11th consecutive 100% rate. In general terms, the City should welcome the recent expansion in student intake at the fee-paying schools.
• There was an overall improvement in the performance of the no-fee-paying schools from just under 50% in 2013 to just over 60% in 2014. This was achieved because the situation at Nombulelo normalised (after the abnormal set of circumstances that prevailed there in 2013) and Ntsika delivered a much improved set of results in 2014 (compared to 2013). Specifically, the pass rate at Ntsika improved from 62% to 81%. Both these phenomena – higher numbers at the fee paying schools and improved results at the no-fee schools – are very positive.
Third, it is significant that the City’s public schools together achieved almost 200 Bachelor passes. In fact, if one adds in the 70 Bachelor passes produced by the (independent) Gadra Matric School in 2014 then Grahamstown’s total number of NSC Bachelor passes exceeds the milestone figure of 250 for the first time.
An important reason underpinning the overall increase is the improvement at Graeme, from 35 to 45 Bachelor passes. This is a fitting tribute to the long-serving, outstanding outgoing principal of Graeme, Peter Reed.
The rationale for and value of a critical opinion piece is to reflect carefully, beyond initial impressions. In this regard, the key issues requiring commentary are learner retention and the intractable inequality of schooling in the City.
With regard to learner retention, the stark reality is that whereas 688 local learners were afforded the opportunity to write NSC examinations in 2013, in 2014 this number declined to 562.
Culling That is, almost 20% fewer learners progressed to Grade 12 in 2014 than one year earlier.
The phenomenon of learners leaving the schooling system prior to their final examinations is referred to as a combination of drop-out (learners taking themselves out of the system) and culling (learners being actively squeezed out by school authorities).
Either way, the consequence is the same: youth unemployment.
Because of the size of the decline in learner numbers, the increased pass rate (from 60,5% to 72,8%) did not translate into a higher number of actual passes.
Whereas 416 local learners obtained their National Senior Certificates in 2013 (a supposedly disastrous matric year for Grahamstown), in 2014 this number declined to 409. So the question that the citizenry should consider is: is it better for the city and its citizens to achieve a higher pass rate or to produce a higher number of certificated young people?
Or put another way: does the human cost of institutionalised culling off-set the benefit of a higher pass rate? And let understand that the human cost that I refer to is the expulsion of poor black learners (not rich white learners) from the schooling system, as elaborated below.
Now I turn attention to the deep divisions in the City’s public schooling system.
Grahamstown’s three fee-paying high schools together produced a matric pass rate of 96,8% in 2014; even more impressively, 74.7% of their 190 candidates achieved Bachelor-level passes.
Race divides By contrast, the city’s six no-fee high schools together managed a matric pass rate of just over 60% last year. Desperately, a mere 13.7% of the 372 candidates who wrote in these schools obtained Bachelor-level passes.
That is, a total of only 51 matric students from Nombulelo, Nathaniel Nyaluza, Ntsika, TEM Mrwetyana, Mary Waters and Khutliso Daniels have qualified to go to university in 2015.
This is the point at which it is necessary to be explicit: whereas the fee-paying schools are deracialised, there are no white children at any of the no-fee schools.
These schools end up registering black children only. All the white learners in the City’s public schools are at VGHS, Graeme and PJ Olivier.
Race therefore a remains a stark dividing line across the City’s schools.
The Chairperson of Gadra Education, Dr Kenneth Ngcoza, has recently emphasised that class is now an equally important factor of division as race.
The majority of learners at the fee-paying schools come from middle-class families (after all, they are required to pay fees), whereas virtually all the black learners at the no-fee schools come from poor working class families.
In summary, if you are a middle class black or white learner at a fee-paying school, statistically you stand a three out of four chance of obtaining a Bachelor-level pass.
By contrast, if you are a working class black learner at a no-fee school, statistically you stand less than a one out of seven chance of reaching this level. In other words, if you cannot pay for your schooling in Grahamstown you receive very little effective education. In conclusion, whilst there is much to celebrate in the 2014 Grahamstown NSC results, it is questionable whether the improvements that have been registered are sustainable.
The three necessary conditions for a sustainable path for public schooling in the City are equality, humanity and performance.
School by school breakdown of results: http://www.grocotts.co.za/files/TAble 1 for web.pdf
School by school bachelor's performance: http://www.grocotts.co.za/files/TAble 2 for web.pdf
