We Need to Talk

Jonathan Jansen

• Publisher: Bookstorm
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781920434168
• eBook ISBN: 9781920434762
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Leadership in Education
• Index: Social Sciences

Ways of speaking can help heal or they can provoke; they can inflame passions or settle nerves.' Professor Jonathan Jansen is fast becoming a household name in South Africa, for his critical and at times inconvenient voice. In this collection of articles previously published in The Times Jansen highlights the issues that confront our country -- the issues we need to talk about. With humour, humility, occasional anger and a good dose of common sense Jansen discusses education, race and identity, the state of our nation, leadership and even sport. When asked what the secret of his controversial columns is, he answers, 'A good column upsets half of your readers; the secret is that it should be a different half each time.' Jansen takes his inspiration from a diverse group of people -- statesmen, teachers, students, children and everyday South Africans he meets -- and introduces us to them through these stories to bring us a vision of the South Africa we can build, if only we pull together and work to heal the wounds of the past. A book to make you stop and think... and then talk about his ideas around the dinner table, in the staffroom, in the classroom or on the bus. All the royalties from this book will go to the No Student Hungry campaign at the University of the Free State.

TALK ABOUT SCHOOLS

‘The dilemma we face, of course,
is that yet another generation of youth
would have seen twelve years
of poor and inconsistent teaching.’

Impossible without a dramatic intervention

Grade 12 results, 2010

13 January 2011

The first reaction was one of pure delirium. The second reaction was deeply troubling. ‘Out with the truth,’ screamed the headline on the front page of an Afrikaans Sunday newspaper. ‘Too good to be true,’ was the lead article on the front page of a new English daily. If the senior certificate results were so good, why would consternation reign among the thinking public? Why would a civic forum take legal steps requiring the body that assures the quality of the Grade 12 examinations to explain the sharp increase in pass rates? It’s quite simple, really: we had seen this happen before, during the years when Kader Asmal was Minister of Education and when, to the horror of ‘matric watchers’, the results spiked from 48.9 per cent in 1999 to 73.3 per cent in 2003!

The reason thinking people are sceptical is because, within a period of twelve months, about 7 per cent more learners passed Grade 12 than in the previous year. Remember, we are talking about very large numbers of candidates. This means that many thousands of students must have passed at a much higher rate than the previous year for this pass rate to have been achieved.

In a small school with, say, 200 senior certificate candidates, a 7 per cent growth in the pass rate would raise some eyebrows, but would be considered within the bounds of possibility, given the modest student numbers. In a system where close to 538 000 students write the examination, 7 per cent growth is impossible unless there has been dramatic intervention during a twelve-month period that could explain the magnitude of the pass rate.

The problem for the Department of Basic Education is that there has been no dramatic intervention on the scale required. In fact, there were major disruptions due to the Soccer World Cup, the protracted strike by public servants (which included mainly teachers from disadvantaged schools) and, of course, the time routinely lost in township schools every year as a matter of bad habit.

The reasons proffered by oversensitive officials so far are disingenuous. Politicians and public servants – increasingly the same people – have claimed in recent days that the reasons for the spike included the fact that ‘the Minister visited schools’, or ‘the media encouraged students to learn’, or ‘everybody pulled their weight’, or ‘after the strike, students and teachers got serious about examination preparation’. In my business there is something called evidence, and these reasons constitute speculative bluff and nonsense reasoning. If, indeed, as many claim, the massively positive response from the public after the teachers’ strike explains the positive results, then my policy recommendation would be that we organise a three-week strike every year just before the Grade 12 examinations – and, before you know it, there would be another spike in the results.

These results are not a real reflection of positive knowledge gains among Grade 12 learners, and every honest public official knows that. That is the simple reason why Umalusi refuses to make public the processes by which adjustments were made to no less than nineteen subjects in the 2010 examination. They refuse, because to reveal that process – in other words, being accountable to the public for a public examination – will cause major political embarrassment to the government.

Unfortunately, our journalists are generally very tame and often intimidated by bullying officials. They should, however, ask Umalusi questions such as the following:

• What would the pass rate have been if the raw scores had been accepted for all the written subjects, and not only for some of them?

• Why exactly were the adjustments made for the specific subjects, and by what margin and for what reasons?

• What were the early interactions between the government and Umalusi in discussions of the initial results, and what were the decisions made about the adjustments in the end?

The government statisticians often sell a sad story when confronted with these kinds of questions. They argue that statistical moderation of raw test or exam results is normal in any large education system because it is unlikely that intelligence or performance can change dramatically within one year. True. What they do not tell you is that the claim is only valid within a stable system. And the last thing South Africa can lay claim to is that we have, or have had, a stable system, especially in 2010.

Until the government and its quality assurance agency can convince the public once and for all that the statistical moderation of examination scores is not, in fact, the political moderation of unacceptable examination data, the public will remain sceptical, and for good reason.

Zim can teach us a thing or two

The country’s schools work; its teachers really teach

2 December 2010

When faced with the choice between two teachers, one from Zimbabwe and one from South Africa, I would choose the Zimbabwean one without any further question.

It is not simply because the Zimbabwean teacher is likely to know more mathematics or physical science than the average South African teacher. It’s about the crucial fact that the Zimbabwean teacher is likely to work much harder than the native South African.

The Zimbabwean educator is not the kind of teacher who is likely to demand more sick leave even before she gets ill. She is not used to taking off the last payday of the month to do her banking and shopping. She is certainly not one to give up weeks of teaching time to further her own salary interests. The Zimbabwean teacher, despite a low salary and poor working conditions, is at heart a professional who places the child at the centre of her duty.

I was one of those optimistic South Africans who made my way to Zimbabwe in the late 1980s to study its highly successful school system. Despite the fact that the war had destroyed many rural schools, there was something in the culture and character of Zimbabwean schools that drove their success.

Like many activists, I too sneered at the Cambridge examination syndicate on which its curriculum and examinations were based, considering it a nasty relic of British colonialism. I mean, how could a proclaimed socialist state (which, of course, Zimbabwe never was) cling so uncritically to the educational instruments of its own oppressors?

I now temper that criticism with a good dose of pragmatism, for the Zimbabweans did not throw out the education baby with the ideological bathwater – they kept in place what was working. If only the ‘gods’ of outcomes-based education had learnt from education reforms across the border.

Of course, I am generalising. There are many good South African teachers on both sides of the resource divide, who struggle against the odds not to succumb to the rising tide of mediocrity in the public school system. To those teachers I doff my hat. My problem is with the majority, the close to 80 per cent of teachers who will not blink an eyelid when a few hundred thousand children again fail the senior certificate examinations.

The dilemma we face, of course, is that yet another generation of youth would have seen twelve years of poor and inconsistent teaching, and pull up their noses at the noble profession. And so the cycle of despair continues, and worsens.

Ask yourself: what were the dominant images of schools in the press in recent months? In other words, what picture of schools, teachers and students did observant teenagers in school have of these important public institutions?

They would have read, heard and seen on television endless images of a school called Jules High. They would have seen pictures of sex on the playgrounds; rumours of rape and date-rape drugs being available; teachers laughing at the spectacle (whether true or not) and – heaven forbid – they would have seen the mobile phone images of child sex circulating among friends. That was the second half of the year.

During the middle of the year, they would have experienced long stay-aways from school, boredom at home, idleness on the streets and teachers who simply didn’t care a damn while hours upon hours of instructional time were lost.

At the beginning of the year, they would have observed the weeks whittling away while schools tried to admit students, finalise timetables and basically wait for the spirit of the summer vacation to wear off.

If I were a desperate township parent who could not get my child into a fancy school in a suburb, I would take the risk of being an illegal immigrant and flee across the border in the opposite direction – into Zimbabwe. Yes, they do have a tyrant for a president and sometimes they lack bread in the shops, but at least the schools work and the teachers teach.

Instead of protesting about service delivery that might never come, I would campaign for thousands of Zim teachers to be given special professional visas by Home Affairs and special housing by Human Settlements. I would do anything to get my child educated, for this is the one thing that can break the cycle of domestic poverty: my child in the hands of a dedicated, knowledgeable, professional teacher.

Can you blame such a parent?

Matric exams not ‘do or die’

Senior certificate results don’t determine a learner’s future

27 October 2010

Dear Matriculant Class of 2010
I’m sure that by now you are tired of hearing all the advice about your senior certificate examinations, and about how the Grade 12 results will determine your future. Your teachers and parents must be at you all the time about putting in every effort, for ‘this is it!’

Actually, much of what you have heard in the run-up to the examinations is very bad advice.

First of all, the Grade 12 examinations do not determine your future. In fact, most universities no longer look at the Grade 12 results alone, but also at a range of other assessments, including the national benchmark tests, to determine whether to admit you to higher learning or not. Some university programmes might even interview you in order to get beyond the paperwork and see whether you have what it takes to succeed at university and in the world of work.

You see, what they do not tell you, is that many universities do not trust the senior certificate results, even though the standard of the examinations is much more credible than it was about ten years ago.

Second, as you know, it is possible in South Africa to pass some subjects with a 30 or 40 per cent mark. If this is your aim, my advice to you is to spare yourself the pressure of the final examinations. Go to a beach somewhere and sell seaweed to fishermen, for your prospects at university or in society are completely non-existent if you take the standards of the Department of Basic Education as your passing goal.

So, go into that examination with the aim of passing well. Our school system is based on mediocrity, not excellence; it bestows favour on those who scrape through, rather than those who outstrip their potential. A pass of 30 per cent means that you are clueless about 70 per cent of the work. Show some self-respect and aim for the top of your class!

Third, there is little you can do in the last month before an examination. Adults have lied to you if they have pushed you into cram schools or spring camps under the illusion that you can take three years of senior learning and squeeze this into your head within a few weeks. All that nonsense you hear about students studying all night and then writing the examination the next morning is extremely dangerous.

The month before and the night before are a time to rest; to do simple revision and not to stress yourself. The brain, unlike other muscles, is a sophisticated organ – not one that can be subjected to sudden press-ups just before a race.

Fourth, and this is going to hurt, but if you did not study steadily all year round, you are not going to pass. If you did not use the time productively while your teachers went on that prolonged and destructive strike, expect the worst. I know this is a terrible thing to say, but it is much better for you to hear the truth now and prepare yourself for the outcome, than to raise your hopes and have them dashed later.

I know of a lazy, but earnest evangelical student who sat for his matric physics exam many years ago and prayed as he lifted the pen to write: ‘Speak Lord, Your servant heareth.’ Needless to say, his physical science results were rotten.

Fifth, and this is going to hurt even more, at least two of your subjects have nothing to do with your further education. The one is life orientation and the other is mathematical literacy. Don’t get me wrong; any meaningful learning in these two areas will probably make you a better citizen or a more informed consumer – stuff like that. Do not for one moment, however, think that mathematical literacy will boost your chances of higher education; even weaker universities now realise that a good mark in math lit is a poor predictor of success.

Sixth, most of you should not go to university to begin with. Society has given you the wrong message about post-school learning opportunities. I hope more and more of you will pursue high-quality vocational training through further education and training (FET) colleges o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Talk About Schools
• Talk About Universities
• Talk About Leadership
• Talk About Society
• Talk About Sport and The 2010 World Cup
• Epilogue