A reply to a Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary question reveals that more than 1700 South African science teachers are not qualified to teach science - meaning that at least 50 000 learners are not receiving teaching from qualified educators.
The picture becomes more concerning when one examines the provincial figures more closely. In the worst performing province - the Free State - 39 per cent of science teachers are unqualified; in Kwazulu-Natal, 27 per cent are unqualified.
Science education in South African high schools is in a very poor state. The 2009 matriculation results had an extraordinary 60 per cent of all scholars who wrote the physical science examination receiving a mark of less than 40 per cent, failing therefore, by any decent standard of assessment. 40 per cent of the scholars received between 40 and 100 per cent and most of these fell in the lower end of the spectrum. Qualified science teachers must have a 3 year college diploma or university degree in science plus a teachers' diploma in order to teach science to learners.
The Western Cape is amongst the provinces that have the lowest number of under qualified teachers, and this is a figure that will be further reduced through our emphasis on performance management of educators. The DA in the Western Cape cabinet has also already drafted a bill to give our provincial government greater powers to conduct school inspections and to directly assess teacher performance in the classroom. These are the measures that we are implementing to see real, tangible improvement in the quality of science tuition in the Western Cape.
Our Western Cape administration will also be establishing four Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) centres of excellence. This will include the expansion and improvement of the Cape Academy in Tokai and Centre of Science and Technology in Khayelitsha and two additional facilities, serving previously disadvantaged learners. These centres will offer world class tuition in STEM and related subjects; thus not relegating learners to rely on solely educators, who may possibly be under-qualified.
The question of course is what are the other provincial departments of education are doing about the problem. Are they providing in-service training for un- and under-qualified teachers? We will be submitting parliamentary questions to each one, to closely monitor whether they are fulfilling their own obligations. Up until this point, however, and particularly following the publishing of these latest figures, it is clear that the ANC's record on providing science education to young South Africans has been nothing short of dire.
Statement issued by Wilmot James, MP, Democratic Alliance shadow minister of higher education, May 3 2010
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