Bantu education? over my dead body

WHEN leading intellectuals say education is worse than during apartheid, they imply that we should return to it.

What a rosy and unreal picture of the past they give us. And how little direction this gives us for the future. Let us look more closely at that past and also begin with those things we now take for granted.

School nutrition: Realising that children cannot learn on empty stomachs, one of the steps we took as a democratic government was the introduction of the National School Nutrition Programme. It feeds more than 8-million children in rural areas, poor urban townships and informal settlements.

Survival and dropping out of school: Few made it to secondary school in the years of gutter education. Only about 85% of the 7-14 years age group were attending primary schools in 1966.

Of these, only just over half were likely to reach Standard Two (Grade 4), and only about a quarter Standard Six (Grade 8). Most of those went straight on to train as teachers. The average school life of Africans at the height of apartheid was thus four years. Only one-tenth would progress to secondary classes.

Currently close to 99% of our learners complete the compulsory phase of schooling and continue to secondary education. School nutrition and the no-fee school policy contribute to this.

Much was made last year of the fact that only 38% of those who enter Grade 1 completed their matric. But only 5.41% of children of the cohort of African children who had started school in 1949 completed in 1959, only 5.21% completed in 1963 and only 8.66% in 1967.

According to Muriel Horrell's rough estimates, for every 100000 in the population group concerned, 866 whites, 322 Indians, 74 coloureds and only 13 Africans reached matric. Should we return to this kind of elitist education?

Racially based and unequal spending: Numbers in schools rocketed during the 1970s and 1980s, but between 1983 and 1993 spending on African and coloured education remained virtually static. By contrast, as academics Fedderke and De Kadt have shown, expenditure per white pupil between 1972 and 1992 remained seven times the level of that for blacks and almost twice that for coloureds and Asians.

Should we reverse our equality policies? The quality of education is where our biggest challenge lies. The quality system can be assessed through the quality of its teachers - their qualifications, knowledge and ability to convey complex concepts. Also important is the availability and use of textbooks by teachers and learners. Outcomes like annual national assessment and matric results count for quality as do numbers and quality of maths and language passes. Pupil-teacher ratios are also a factor.

Most importantly, a system can have good teachers, texts and results, but if the values taught promote injustice and hatred, it is not a good quality system.

In the 1960s, teacher training for African teachers deteriorated. The number of teachers with only Standard Six to matric as their background increased in the 1960s, while the proportion of African teachers in secondary and high schools possessing university degrees fell. In 1965, only 25.5% of African teachers had university degrees.

Research on the proliferation of upgrading courses after 1976 showed that few had any effect, mostly because such teacher development was not linked to classroom practice.

This is a far cry from the changes initiated after 1994 that place a premium on well-qualified teachers who know their subject and how to teach it. Current requirements expect all teachers to have a four-year university degree. The system is oriented to improving subject knowledge and practice.

Teaching time was reduced under apartheid to three hours by the use of double sessions and the platoon system. It also prevented reading time outside school hours.

The education department supplied primary schools with class readers, but all pupils had to buy their own textbooks, slates and writing materials. Nowadays we take it for granted that the government provides all learning and teaching support materials.

What then of the results of that tiny minority who did make it to matric during apartheid? In their analysis of pass rates from 1910-1993, Fedderke and De Kadt have shown that the black matric pass rate consistently fell considerably below the white pass rate.

From 1963-1993, the white pass rate stayed in the 75%-95% range while the African rate, with few exceptions, stayed below 60%. African pass rates fluctuated as wildly in this period as white pass rates did in the decades after Union (1910-23). These pass rates had harsh implications for learners in a labour market that increasingly accepted only matric certificates.

Many lament the fact that students can pass with 40% and 30%. Passing matric with Fs and Gs was common among all races, so this is not something new. If the number of passes for Africans then was low and now is high but poor, there has at least been a democratic dividend. Possibilities for entry into the world of work and higher education have improved. This recognition does not detract from our efforts to improve the quality of the pass by improving teaching and learning lower down in the system through our assessment, workbook and other literacy and numeracy strategies.

If the matric survival rate of Africans was dismal, maths and science was dire. Between 1958 and 1965 only 431 African matriculants passed maths. In 1967, a paltry 125 maths and 103 science students qualified for university entry.

It is easy to forget when we have a Constitution guaranteeing equality and rights for all and a national curriculum based on these values.

The cumulative historical backlog and inheritance of a system of structural violence cannot be underestimated.

What we need is sober debate on what to do, informed by evidence, rather than a historical, emotional rhetoric that simply whips up feelings.

Playing the blame game will not help anyone.

• Motshekga is Minister of Basic Education