SACP welcomes improved matric pass rate, wishes students all the best

8 January 2020

The South African Communist Party (SACP) congratulates the class of 2019 matriculants who successfully completed their National Senior Certificates and wishes all the best going forward. Furthermore the SACP welcomes the improvement in the overall national pass rate, from 78.2 per cent in 2018 to 81.3 per cent in 2019. The SACP commends the teachers, school governing bodies, parents, other stakeholders and the Department of Basic Education for the improvement.

To the learners who did not complete successfully, the SACP says this is not the end of the road but a new era to push forward with more effective methods and greater efforts towards success.

Inequality and the legacy of uneven development are still a major factor in learner performance and remain a key challenge to learning and teaching in schools, communities and households. South Africa has to eliminate the problem and build equality in our education system in order to advance further improvements taking into account performance in all subjects.

The SACP reiterates its strong opposition to neoliberal austerity which, among others, uses budget cuts to attack areas that are important to economic turnaround, transformation and development. For instance, while on the one hand government commendably increased the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, more so from 2009, on the other hand, it decreased its direct funding to 40 per cent of overall universities’ income for at least 15 years by 2014. During this period, subsidy per student did not increase in line with inflation while in addition it did not cover personnel costs. Funding per student in South Africa remained relatively low compared to both the developed and core of “emerging” countries.  

The SACP calls upon government to support universities adequately and substantially increase, rather than cut, financial support for the public technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system. The capacity of public TVET colleges must be increased to offer the youth more options through an increase in the number of courses, skills programmes and qualifications.

At present, there are more courses and qualifications offered outside the public TVET sector, as well as by universities. This directly contradicts the plan by government to enrol more students in public TVET colleges. Not unrelated, unscrupulous forces have made the TVET sector their target of private wealth accumulation through unregistered institutions and unaccredited courses and qualifications. This problem must be dealt with decisively and holistically.  

The public TVET system is crucial for skills development and building a thriving co-operatives sector as well as small, medium and micro enterprises. It must be adequately supported and repositioned to lead our skills revolution towards economic turnaround and empowerment of the masses, especially but not exclusively the youth, women, rural and township communities.

The SACP joins the Department of Higher Education, Science and Technology in warning students and parents against fly-by-night or bogus institutions and unaccredited programmes. We support the department’s plan, working together with law enforcement authorities, to shutdown such institutions.  

Issued by Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, Central Committee Member and Spokesperson, 8 January 2020