I suppose one can forgive Education Minister Angie Motshekga her moment of elation. Instead of the expected low improvement in matric results, she announced a "whopping" increase from a 60.7% pass rate in 2008 to 67.8% last year. "It is a true reflection of learner achievement" she gushed.

But in truth, should one be excited that 32% of pupils failed last year? Or that most Grade 1s don't even get to matric where the quality of passes is mostly low, with 30% accepted as a pass. As DA Education Spokesman Wilmot James points out, would you go to a doctor who gets his diagnosis right three times out of 10? Or fly on a plane where the pilot gets three out of 10 landings right?

Most of the new matriculants will not find jobs or go on to further study with their low passes. Of those who do get to university, half fail their first year. Maths is critical, but 14 000 fewer pupils passed last year than in 2009.

So it is really hard to prettify these results unless one's aspirations are really low. I am reminded of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" that US President George W Bush condemned when pushing education reform.

Surely we must go beyond President Jacob Zuma's repeated line that "teachers must be in school, in class, on time, teaching for at least seven hours a day"? This is about as basic as you can get, and no guarantee of improvement if teachers are not properly qualified, motivated or supported.

Nonetheless, there are some really inspiring stories of pupils from deprived backgrounds who defied the odds. My favourite comment is from Vusani Tutu who got five distinctions at a Soweto school. He said "I'm a rose growing from concrete ... I'd come to school at night, walk back home in the dark ...I dream of being the next Mark Shuttleworth and I'll go for that dream at Wits, where I'll study aeronautical engineering."

We should not minimize the depth of the challenge, since good matric results will not happen without a solid foundation phase. Even in Gauteng, as pointed out by Education MEC Barbara Creecy, about half of children going to high school can't read or write.

We really need a broader societal/cultural change so that people like Vusani Tutu are the role models, not get-rich-quick gangsters or Julius Malema-types who flunked high school. American studies have also shown the critical importance of a nurturing two-parent family in accounting for differences in educational attainment.

Pouring money into schools has not worked there, especially where children come from broken homes. What has worked in areas like Harlem in New York are programmes like the No Excuses Schools where a highly demanding culture of achievement is promoted throughout the entire community.

Neighbourhood by neighbourhood, local leaders need to create No Excuses counter-cultures where tough measurable demands are set and met. They should be assisted by legislation like that passed recently in the Western Cape that authorizes inspections and performance agreements with school principals.

Community pressure should isolate teacher unions that don't go along with this. Instead of celebrating mediocrity, we should aspire to the high standards that will make us a winning country.

Jack Bloom is a DA member of the Gauteng legislature. This article first appeared in The Citizen.

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