NEWS & ANALYSIS

Anatomy of South African decay

What the 2007 matric results say about the state of our country (March 2008)

The racial breakdown of the 2007 matriculation results, released by the Department of Education last month, provide an important insight into the cause and extent of the crisis currently facing South Africa. The Department points out these statistics "cannot be regarded as completely reliable" based as they are on self-reporting. There are pupils who refuse to classify themselves by race and others who misclassify themselves by mistake. Last year, apparently, numerous Indian and black pupils erroneously classified themselves as ‘Asian.'

Last year 591,251 pupils wrote the government matric, 386,051 (65,3%) passed, and 89,838 (15,1%) passed with exemption - the minimum grade needed to progress on to university. In absolute terms more pupils passed, including with exemption, than ever before. However, there was a small decline in both the pass and exemption rates. See Table 3. In assessing the overall state of education one also needs to factor in the 7632 pupils at independent schools who wrote the separate IEB exams: 7283 passed (98,9%) and 5780 (78,5%) passed with exemption. See Table 4.

When one breaks these figures down by race, they reveal how little progress has actually been made since the end of apartheid in extending quality education to disadvantaged black and Coloured South Africans.

Last year 277,941 (60,6%) of black pupils passed matric. This is a doubling of the number who passed in 1991 and it represents a fifty percent increase in the pass rate. However, when one looks at the exemption rate this bright picture dims considerably. 49,950 black pupils passed the government matric with exemption last year, up from 30,389 in 1991. However, the exemption rate (10,9%) is no different now to what it was then. See tables 1 & 2. The Eastern Cape had the worst pass rate for black pupils (54%) as well as the worst exemption rate (6,9%). This lack of improvement has been achieved despite the equalisation of funding for school children; the integration of formerly white, Coloured, and Indian schools; and, the end of the politically inspired disruption of schooling by the ANC and its allies.

The statistics for the 34,741 Coloured pupils who wrote the government matric suggest that something catastrophic has happened to education in the Coloured community since the ANC came to power. The pass rate for these pupils has dropped from 82.8% in 1991 to 78% last year. More worryingly, only 15,4% (5367) of the  these pupils passed with exemption. This represents a decline of almost a third in the exemption rate from 1991 when it stood at 21,9%.

These statistics suggest that, outside of Model C and independent schools, black and Coloured pupils are being deprived quality education; without which they cannot progress into the professions or compete with the children of the middle classes.

The pass rates for Indian and white pupils are largely unchanged from 1991, although the number of white pupils writing the government matric has now declined by over a third. The matric exemption rate for Indian pupils has increased from 49,5% in 1991 to 55.2% last year. For white pupils it has increased from 41,5% to 52%. This increase is largely a reflection of the softening of standards in the new matric relative to the old one.

While white and Indian pupils are still able to access reasonably good education through the school system, as soon as they leave matric they are faced with a wall of state-sponsored racial discrimination. In 2001 the racial composition of the population was estimated at 79% black, 8,9% Coloured, 9,6% white, and 2,5% Indian. The intention of the ANC is that every sphere of human activity in South Africa, at every level, should conform to these proportions. Racial discrimination is regarded as necessary and justified until demographic representivity has been achieved everywhere. As the party's 2007 Strategy & Tactics states, the need for such measures will only decline when "all centres of power and influence and other critical spheres of social endeavour become broadly representative of the country's demographics."

The effect of these measures, ever more strictly applied, is to prevent young Indian and particularly white South Africans from pursuing their ambitions in the land of their birth. What this means is that the country either loses these youth to other countries or refuses to take full advantage of the abilities of those that remain. South Africa thus deprives itself of many of its best and brightest minds. White and Indian pupils made up 9,5% of all those who wrote the government matric in 2007, 14,1% of those who passed it, 33,1% of those who passed with exemption, 42,2% of those who passed with merit, and 77,5% of those who passed with distinction.

In the early 1990s it was known that there would be a shortage of at least half a million skilled workers - ‘professional, technical, highly skilled, executive and managerial' - by the end of the decade. The ANC responded to this challenge by creating a truly perverse system. On the one hand it has fostered a dysfunctional school system which prevents most pupils from realising their real potential through education. On the other hand it refuses to utilise the skills and talents of many of those that do manage to gain a decent education because they are of the ‘wrong' colour. It is a system to the benefit of no-one but a hyper-privileged ruling elite; which has fixed the rules to ensure that they do not have to compete with individuals from either the racial minorities or the still disadvantaged majority.

Table 1: 1991 matriculation results by race
Race Candidates Passes Exemption
    Number Proportion Number Proportion
Black 280918 114695 40.8% 30289 10.8%
Coloured 22405 18557 82.8% 4911 21.9%
Indian 14258 13558 95.1% 7062 49.5%
White 65933 63504 96.3% 27356 41.5%
Total 383514 210314 54.8% 69618 18.2%
Source: SAIRR, Race Relations Survey 1992/1993

 

Table 2: 2007 government matriculation results by race
Race Candidates Passes Exemption
    Number Proportion Number Proportion
Black 458836 277941 60.6% 49950 10.9%
Coloured 34741 27101 78.0% 5367 15.4%
Indian 13534 12590 93.0% 7475 55.2%
White 42617 41921 98.4% 22145 52.0%
Other/unknown 41523 26498 63.8% 4441 10.7%
TOTAL 591251 386051 65.3% 89378 15.1%

 

Government matric results 1980 - 2007
Year Candidates Pass % With Exemption %
1980 109807 82597 75.2% 34011 31.0%
1981 125291 88639 70.7% 34742 27.7%
1982 139488 95916 68.8% 35289 25.3%
1983 154245 104183 67.5% 37666 24.4%
1984 167842 113852 67.8% 49787 29.7%
1985 164967 110810 67.2% 41164 25.0%
1986 245509 133373 54.3% 48025 19.6%
1987 291349 170856 58.6% 60195 20.7%
1988 316842 199742 63.0% 68700 21.7%
1989 360452 185092 51.3% 61223 17.0%
1990 408468 191249 46.8% 60281 14.8%
1991 448491 221407 49.4% 73054 16.3%
1992 472458 250527 53.0% 75601 16.0%
1993 472458 242310 51.3% 68820 14.6%
1994 495408 287343 58.0% 88497 17.9%
1995 531453 283742 53.4% 78821 14.8%
1996 518225 279487 53.9% 80015 15.4%
1997 559233 264705 47.3% 70127 12.5%
1998 561029 279356 49.8% 71773 12.8%
1999 511159 249831 48.9% 63725 12.5%
2000 489941 283294 57.8% 67707 13.8%
2001 449371 277206 61.7% 68626 15.3%
2002 443821 305774 68.9% 75048 16.9%
2003 440821 322492 73.2% 82010 18.6%
2004 467985 330717 70.7% 85117 18.2%
2005 508363 347184 68.3% 86531 17.0%
2006 528525 351503 66.5% 85830 16.2%
2007 591251 386051 65.3% 89378 15.1%
Sources: Department of Education and South African Institute of Race Relations

 

Table 4: IEB matric results 1994-2007
Year Candidates Pass % With Exemption %
1994 1305 1225 93.9% 920 70.5%
1995 1371 1306 95.3% 956 69.7%
1996 2994 2913 97.3% 2158 72.1%
1997 4269 4137 96.9% 3052 71.5%
1998 4602 4542 98.7% 3479 75.6%
1999 5550 5478 98.7% 4124 74.3%
2000 5493 5423 98.7% 4157 75.7%
2001 5414 5360 99.0% 4222 78.0%
2002 6052 5961 98.5% 4599 76.0%
2003 6290 6189 98.4% 4906 78.0%
2004 6415 6357 99.1% 5099 79.5%
2005 6763 6635 98.1% 5295 78.3%
2006 7035 6915 98.3% 5544 78.8%
2007 7362 7283 98.9% 5780 78.5%
Sources: SAIRR and IEB