SACP welcomes improved matric results, calls for elimination of inequalities
20 January 2023
The South African Communist Party (SACP) welcomes improvements and congratulates all learners who sat for the Grade 12 examinations in 2022 and obtained the National Senior Certificate.
The SACP also congratulates learners and everyone who contributed to learners’ development for the improved pass rate.
To those who were unable to get the required mark, the SACP encourages them to not despair, for there are still many options to pursue in order to further develop themselves.
The class of 2022 faced a myriad of challenges, in particular COVID-19, since the learners were in Grade 10, and load-shedding. COVID-19 found long-established inequalities among learners, owing to capitalist relations and the legacy of apartheid. This worsened an already bad situation. As such, while welcoming the improvements, we still need to make clear:
The education outcomes continue to mirror the inequalities and uneven development that characterises our country.
The system of inequalities in South Africa is institutionally articulated in the provision of services such as health and education, among others, between private and public provision and institutions. In basic education, there are also inequalities within public provision and schools. The quintiles and associated inequalities tell the story. The government must comprehensively analyse all the matric results with the objective of eliminating inequality and building equality in basic education.
Underfunded and under-resourced schools must be funded and resourced adequately to bring them on a par with better off schools. Norms and standards for all learners to have equal prospects of success are crucial.
While having money to pay is decisively a key determinant of access in private provision and institutions, public provision and institutions have been affected by neo-liberalism and failures to deliver infrastructure. In education, for example, failures to deliver sanitation infrastructure, classes and employ more, qualified, teachers, to eliminate overcrowding continue to affect learners. In January 2023, the year that marks the 29th anniversary of our April 1994 democratic breakthrough, there is a Grade 8 class at Mamelodi High School with 74 learners. This and other overcrowding situations must be addressed as a matter of urgency. The prospects for the affected learners to succeed in their secondary education face a serious, structural, limitation, compared to independent schools and high public quintile schools with 25 or less than 35 learners in a class.
That said, the SACP urges learners not only to focus on furthering their education through universities but also Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges
TVET should not be perceived as an alternative to university education and training, however.
The skills revolution that South Africa needs to turn around its economy and advance broad-based empowerment, including through building a thriving co-operative sector, as well as successful small, medium and micro enterprises requires a more robust approach and expansion of TVET. Diversity in TVET programme offerings and qualifications, with vertical articulation to the highest level in our national qualifications framework, will go a long way in helping South Africa to advance a skills revolution that it needs to turn around on many fronts, including inequality, unemployment and poverty.
Issued by Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, Central Committee and Political Bureau Member: Spokesperson and Secretary for Policy and Research, 20 January 2023
