Government throwing money at the wrong problems: school group

The Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (Fedsas) says that South Africa’s education sector has no vision for the future and has failed to progress over the last decade.

Responding to the minister of basic education’s recent budget speech as well as the latest Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), the group said that the national Department of Education does not comprehend the challenges facing the sector in South Africa.

The latest PIRLS survey, which tested roughly 12,000 learners across the country and compared them to similar-age learners in 42 other nations, found that grade 4 students in South Africa have the worst reading ability in the world.

The report shows 81% of grade 4 learners cannot read for meaning. The country’s overall mean achievement score for reading is 288 – also far below the 500 international average.

Jaco Deacon, the CEO of Fedsas, said that reading skills would only be addressed effectively if there is an urgent focus in the foundation phase, together with catch-up programmes, on appointing specialist educators and therapeutic services.

“Our schools need more social workers, occupational, speech and physiotherapists and fewer incompetent educators hiding behind overly prescriptive workbooks.”

The CEO added that the number of learners per class, especially in the foundation phase, should also not exceed 25.

To achieve these changes, he said that there needs to be a financial focus on the right area, and currently, money is “flowing in the wrong direction”.

“All of this cost money. And despite this, the education budget makes provision for R121.5 million for the National Education Collaboration Trust. This trust was created as a platform for cooperation with role-players and for the private sector to support education.”

The trust, according to Deacon, has become a structure that takes a big bite out of the overall budget. Deacon provided another example of misdirected funds:

“The Presidential Youth Employment Initiative, which forms part of the presidential employment stimulus programme, is supposed to be funded by the Presidency.”

“It is difficult to understand how R6.9 billion from the education budget could be allocated to this initiative. Education would have been able to use this money for building several new schools or to create smaller classes in the foundation phase,” Deacon said.

Fedsas said that funds should ultimately be funnelled into the foundational and early childhood development phases of education.

Deacon said the organisation is further concerned about the slow implementation of the “Three-Stream Model”, which aimed to create three separate educational pathways: academic, vocational and occupational.

“Fedsas supports this model as it can address the country’s skills shortage and alleviate high unemployment among young people. But it is not happening quickly enough.”

He added that there seems to be a lack of political will to address dysfunctional provincial education departments, incompetent officials and bad teachers, which make up the ‘three potholes’ that might make the wheels come off for quality education.

New laws

As the government struggles to get to grips with the problems in education, it is also moving to clamp down on the autonomy of school governing bodies.

The department is in the process of airing out the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill in public consultations.

One of the bill’s many aims is to revise governing bodies in South Africa and give the provincial heads of education more of a say in terms of school interests.

The proposals have come under intense scrutiny from the public in general, as well as organisations representing governing bodies in the country. Feedback has been largely negative – with allegations that the government is trying to centralise control over education cropping up among responses.

Alana Bailey, the head of cultural affairs at AfriForum said that the bill has provisions that pose a major threat to the future of quality education in South Africa in general, specifically the admission and language policies.

Further amendments contained in the BELA Bill include:

• Making grade R the new compulsory school starting age, as opposed to grade 1, as is currently the case.
• Forcing homeschooled learners to be registered for this type of schooling.
• Criminalising parents who do not ensure their child or children are in school, with fines or jail time up to 12 months.
• Holding school governing bodies more accountable for disclosures of financial interests – including those related to their spouses and family members.
• Prohibiting educators from conducting business with the state or being a director of public or private companies conducting business with the state.
• Abolishing corporal punishment and initiation/hazing practices.
• Allowing schools to sell alcohol outside of school hours.
• Giving government department heads power over language policies and the curriculums a school must adopt.

Read: South Africa’s massive reading problem

Government throwing money at the wrong problems: school group