The Democratic Alliance (DA) has voiced their concerns over the "poor state" of Gauteng schools, particularly where the school dropout rate is concerned.
"Thousands" of Gauteng learners have dropped out of school, raising alarm bells for South Africa's state of education.
The DA asked Gauteng MEC for Education, Matome Chiloane, a series of questions regarding the worrying statistics of school dropout rates in the country, as more than 10% of learners enrolled by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in 2021 "failed to return to school for the 2022 academic year, in Grades 1 to 12."
There are many reasons why learners don't complete their primary and/or secondary school education, namely due to factors such as household income, gender, disability, geography, bullying at schools and unexpected teen pregnancies.
Learners dropping out of school has long been a point of worry for the DBE, despite a few improvements in recent years. Statistical data shows that more young people have completed high school, compared to the past 10 years.
Education Economist and researcher, Martin Gustafsson, told the Basic Education Portfolio Committee that should this trend continue, the rate at which learners complete matric "could reach 83% by 2050", adding that South Africa's state of education (in terms of learners completing school) is "not that bad at all", but also stated that there is room for improvement.
Parliamentary Members did not agree with the Department’s figures, saying the reality on the ground painted a different picture.
50% of learners in Grade Six do not go on to complete matric; half of the learners end up dropping out, failing or having to repeat a year or even multiple years of school.
Chiloane, says that the DA "missed a number of factors" when raising their concerns about the rise in school dropout rates.
"The question was looking at the final and 'throughput', and not looking at the whole system entirely. So, he [the member of the DA that asked the DBE about the dropout figures] looked at numbers based on Grade 1 and the outcome based at Grade 12, and said that at this point, this number [of learners] have been lost throughout the system," explained the MEC.
Chiloane further elaborated that when the Department notes that a learner has "dropped out and is missing from the system", the Department first has to conduct an entire system search to confirm that the learner is not enrolled in any public school within any province, that the learner is not in a TVET college, that they've moved to a private school or are being homeschooled.
"Then formally, we can talk about the real state of learner dropout," said Chiloane. The MEC added that there is actually an 86% retention of learners remaining in schools until Grade 9.
However, Education Activist, Hendrick Makaneta, says that the Department does not actually have effective mechanisms in place to track learners who have dropped out of the school system.
Referencing the retention rate mentioned by Chiloane, Makaneta says that majority of the learners who drop out are at Grade 10 level and that is where the Department is having challenges.
"It is quite difficult for government to find out or know where these learners are, in the sense that by the time they reach matric, almost 55% of those who registered in Grade 1 are able to write the National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams. For us as activists in the terrain, that is a cause for great concern," said Makaneta.
Makaneta attributes the sudden drop in learners attending schools after Grade 9 to the choosing of subjects as learners enter the senior phase of Grade 10, teenage pregnancies, household situations, or choosing to pursue employment instead of completing their school years.
In reference to the matric pass rate and learners making it to their matric year, the DBE highlighted that the percentage of all youths who went on to complete the National Senior Certificate (NSC) has increased from less than 40% in the early 2000s, to over 60%.
The number of bachelor passes (those qualifying for university entrance) has tripled since 2008, says the Department, adding that "more than 60% of these bachelor passes now come from no-fee schools, which serve children in more vulnerable and rural contexts."
