The real state of SA Education just a byline.
During the evening news on E-TV on Sunday night, 9 September, I hear “The South African Education System ranked at 133, below that of Zimbabwe and Swaziland”. Nodding my head in agreement, then the doubt in the origin of the information received by E-TV, as things cannot be so bad.
So off I go to my trusty PC and I try to Google this information………Nothing. I try again on Monday, and after taxing my meager internet skills I come up with ONE newspaper article in the Mail and Guardian that mentions this startling statistic in three lines "Our education system is ranked lower than poorer countries in Africa and the world," he said. South Africa ranked 133 out of 142 countries for "quality of the educational system" in the 2011-2012 World Competitiveness Report released by the World Economic Forum.” http://mg.co.za/article/2012-09-07-low-fee-schools-on-the-rise
This most important bit of information is downgraded to a short byline in a report about Low Fee private schools that are multiplying to take up the slack due to the shortcomings in the Education System.
Am I mistaken or was President Zuma recently honored with a doctorate by a Nigerian University for his role in promoting education in Africa and South Africa? Should he also be declared a Saint for the decline in productivity in South Africa as a whole because of a lack of education in this country? Or Robert Mugabe for Zimbabwe ranking 30th.
The following statistics on the quality of education are available on the WEF website http://www.weforum.org/issues/competitiveness-0/gci2012-data-platform/
| 30 | Zimbabwe |
| 125 | Sierra Leone |
| 126 | Namibia |
| 136 | Mongolia |
| 137 | Dominican Republic |
| 138 | Mauritania |
| 139 | Egypt |
| 140 | South Africa |
| 141 | Haiti |
| 142 | Libya |
| 143 | Burundi |
| 144 | Yemen |
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