Mechanical Technology January 2015

⎪ Comment ⎪

‘Matric’ results and career success E very year, I get irritated by the frenzy created by the release of the ‘matric’ exam results. It has become part of the post-Christmas holi- day routine for the media to seek out the smiling students celebrating their (unexpected) success, those that have triumphed over adversity to scrape through and, on the opposite extreme, those unhappy souls that have had their bright futures derailed. The personal success/failure stories are not really the root cause of my irritation, though. What I resent most is the notion that this exam, with all its frailties, is lauded by so many as the key indicator of career success.

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Officially, ‘matric’ no longer exists. The school leaving qualification awarded to students suc- cessfully completing Grade 12 in South Africa is called the National Senior Certificate (NSC). The term ‘matric’ comes from the wording that used to be used on NSC certificates ‘Matriculation endorsement’, which certified that the candidate had fulfilled the minimum requirements for entry into a South African university – and the word ‘matriculation’ is defined as ‘the formal process of becoming eligible to enter a university’. But only a minority of students, in any country of the world, actually progress to university level education. The Stats SA’s 2013 General Household Survey (GHS) found that the percentage of people aged 18 to 29 attending university by population group was at 3.2% for black people, 3.1% for so called coloured people, 18.7% for whites and 9.2% for people of Asian origin. While this clearly indicates a slow rate of transformation in our society, it should also send a loud and clear message that ‘matric’ as a university entrance examination is an inappropriate measure of success for the majority of our integrated population. The NSC splits the certification requirements into four levels: Bachelor’s, Diploma, Higher Certificate and Basic. The Bachelors level represents the traditional university entrance require- ments. To receive a ‘Bachelors certificate’, students must achieve 50% or more in four subjects with at least 30% in all remaining subjects and more than 40% in their home language. Only about 28% of those who wrote the 2014 NSC exams (150 752 students) achieved at this level. And, since these are merely ‘minimum requirements’ almost all universities are now imposing additional entry requirements and/or examinations for students, depending on the specific career being pursued. At the opposite end of the spectrum are the minimum requirements for a ‘basic’ NSC certificate, which are 40% in three subjects, one of which should be a home language and 30% in three other subjects. The national 75.8% pass rate quoted by media and politicians is based on this ‘basic’ level and, of the 532 860 Grade 12 students who wrote the ‘matric exam’ as full-time candidates in 2014, 128 986 failed to achieve this level. The true value of this basic certificate is also unclear. The entry requirements for Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) point towards statutory minimum requirements as follows: • For Higher certificate courses: 40% in the language of teaching and learning (LOTL), either home language or first additional language; 30% in either maths or maths literacy; 40% in life orientation; and 50% in the four other vocational subjects • For Diploma courses: 50% in three fundamental subjects including LOTL and 60% in four compulsory vocational modules. • For Bachelor’s degrees: 60% in three fundamental subjects including LOTL and 70% in four compulsory vocational modules. A basic NSC certificate, therefore, fails to meet any of these ‘statutory’ entry requirements for further education. For these and other reasons, Jonathan Jansen, vice-chancellor and rector of the University of the Free State says “I would seriously consider not sending my child to school in South Africa” and would “worry myself senseless when I enrol my child in Grade 1 knowing that she could be among the more than half-a-million children who would not make it through to Grade 12.” In terms of advice for university candidates, he says: “If your average mark in the NSC is below 70%, you should consider not going to university and, if you do, be prepared to work very, very hard.” Having discarded outcomes-based education, we seem determined to popularise the ‘gate- keeping’ system from our past. While we need more and better university graduates, and our education system must be able to feed such candidates into tertiary institutions, alternative pathways for those unsuited to academic study are also essential. By over focusing on ‘matric’ we are losing sight of the need for work-ready school leavers and the annual frenzy is perpetuating educational poverty for the majority of our youngsters. Peter Middleton

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Mechanical Technology — January 2015

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