SA kids 'outperformed'
2001-07-11 12:18
Pretoria - South African pupils are being out-performed by their Senegalese and Zambian counterparts. According to a new study, SA learners are weaker in Maths, Language and life skills. This, despite the fact that SA spends more money on educating their youngsters.
Joint Education Trust (JET) executive director Nick Taylor said recently at a conference at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), that a study involving 12 African countries found that South African Grade 4 pupils had among the weakest levels of understanding when it came to numbers, literacy and life skills.
More than 10 000 South African pupils participated in the research. They scored 30 percent on average for number comprehension, one of the lowest scores in the group. They even came out 3 percent below Zambia.
The South African pupils were second last in life skills and eighth in literacy.
Similar weak results were scored in 1996 when South African Grade 7 and 8 pupils came out last among 40 countries in an international mathematics and science survey. The study did not, however, include any other African countries.
Taylor contends that the South African state school system is ôwithout a doubt among the most inefficient globallyö.
"Despite the big education budget, considerably more than those of other developing countries, teaching outcomes are either weaker or comparable with the poorest nations", he said.
Taylor commented that the "inefficiency of the system is the single biggest stumbling block to overcome the apartheid heritage and provide equal opportunities for all".
ôDespite drastic affirmative action in channelling more resources to historically disadvantaged sectors, it appears to have very little effect on improving teaching outcomes,ö Taylor noted.
He maintains that among the important steps to improve efficiency is to decrease the salary account and to make more funds available for books and stationary.
Last year government spent 90 percent of the education budget on salaries.