By Lee-Yandra Paulsen
The Minister of Basic Education has announced plans to review the Grade 12 pass mark, currently set at 30%. Additionally, the minister revealed plans to establish an advisory council comprising key stakeholders and experts to assess and potentially raise the pass mark.
Speaking to VOC Breakfast on Monday, Professor Aslam Fataar from the Department of Education Policy Studies at Stellenbosch University, a Research and Development Professor attached to the university’s Transformation Office, shared his thoughts on increasing the pass mark above 30%.
He stated, “That is an important debate. It is a little more complex than a political rally trying to change a number. The question is, How do you shift the system so the system can produce what you require it to produce, and that is quality education?”
Fataar emphasized that a higher pass percentage should signify a student’s readiness to enter post-secondary education and the job market. He explained, “The 30% pass rate and trying to improve or increase it also reflect the necessity of improving the education system more broadly, from top to bottom.”
He further added, “When we settle on a number, whether 35% or 40%, we must move the system slowly but surely over the next five years, as it cannot happen immediately, towards an alignment of a quality education system to move students to attain that new number.”
Fataar also highlighted the need to identify and address fundamental issues within the education system. “When you dumb the system down, you are not able to focus on where the blockages and the problems are in the system. For example, if the minister says that reading and literacy in the foundation phase are the problem, that has to be targeted first. Systemically, how teacher training, materials development, time on task, reading texts, and reading textbooks are handled is crucial. There is no easy way out of that, and the system must be set up in a way that it can sustain that throughout.”
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