South Africa's public school system in crisis

The effective matric pass rate for 2008 is only half of government's proclaimed pass rate of 62,5 percent, a South African think-tank has calculated.

The Institute of Race Relations said it should be considered that of the 920 716 students who were in Grade 11 in 2007, only 333 681, or 64 percent, went on to write their matric examinations in 2008.

"36,2 percent is a more accurate reflection of the real effective matric pass rate than the 62,5 percent cited by Education Minister Naledi Pandor," Frans Cronje, the deputy chief executive officer of the institute, told the Cape Argus.

He warned that the failure of the public school system was a "major crisis" which, in time, would "introduce risk factors South Africa can do without".

The institute said it has, for several years, sought answers from the Education Department about the sudden dropout of students ahead of matric, with the department responding that these students went on to enter further education and training colleges or simply chose not to continue.

But Cronje said the Education Department has failed to explain the sudden drop-out ahead of Grade 12, because the intake numbers of Further Education and Training (FET) colleges did not reflect the large number of dropouts.

He believes that the "enormous political pressure on the department of education flows on to individual schools", and that this could explain the sudden exodus of students who appeared unable to pass matric while they were still in Grade 11.

"You wouldn't go through 11 years and give up of your own volition.

"Something is preventing them from getting through, but we don't know exactly what," said Cronje.

Annually, there were roughly a million students per grade in all grades from Grade one to 11, "but suddenly in Grade 12 you have half that number".

"Fifty percent of kids who enter school never pass out through Grade 12," said Cronje, questioning whether a school system which saw half its entrants never reach Grade 12 could hold forth 62.5 percent as "an honest reflection of the passout from the school system".

Cronje said the current school system was much the same as Bantu education, in that it was stunting "mainly poor, mainly black" children.

"The low pass rates, the low throughput rates and the low rates of university entry passes (calculated by the institute as an effective 11,7 percent) are perhaps now the greatest single crisis facing South Africa."

"The end result is not very different from that of Bantu education.

"Continued failure raises the risk of future political instability and questions the true commitment of the ANC to ensure a better life for all its supporters."

Pandor's spokesperson, Lunga Ngqengelele, said: "I haven't seen the document so we cannot comment on it."