Jobs for Cash: New data on school inequality underscores urgency of report

18 April 2016

A reply to a parliamentary question reveals that just 60% of children from the poorest communities passed the 2015 National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams. In comparison, over 90% of learners who attended schools in more affluent areas passed.

It is a tragedy that, two decades after the end of Apartheid, our poorest children continue to receive a sub-standard education, diminishing their chances of escaping poverty.

The widening of the education gap is being driven primarily by the decline in provinces where SADTU is known to have a stranglehold over weak education departments, namely the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo.

This new data underscores just how urgent the release of the ‘Jobs for Cash’ report is, since this report will show the extent of SADTU’s ‘state capture’ in these provinces.

We therefore urge Minister Motshekga to be strong in the face of SADTU pressure, and to stick to the 6 May deadline for the public release of the ‘Jobs for Cash’ report.

South African public schools are categorised into five groups, or quintiles, largely for the purpose of allocating financial resources. 

Quintile one is the 'poorest' quintile, while quintile five is the 'least poor'. These rankings are determined nationally according to the poverty of the community around the school.

An analysis of the results by quintile confirms that the gap in the pass rate between the ‘poorest’ and ‘richest’ schools is widening. 

While the pass rate in quintile 5 schools has remained consistently above 90% over the last three years, the pass rate in quintile 1 schools has dropped by close to 10%.

In the Eastern Cape, the gap has doubled in three years to 45.5 percentage points. 94.4% of pupils attending quintile 5 schools passed the 2015 NSC exams in the Eastern Cape, while a mere 48.9% of pupils attending quintile 1 schools passed.

In KwaZulu-Natal, the gap has also nearly doubled to 35.6 percentage point gap. 82.4% of pupils in quintile 5 schools passed the 2015 NSC exams while only 46.8% passed in quintile 1 schools. This compared to over 70% of quintile 1 schools who passed in 2013.

Similarly, in Limpopo, this gap has grown to 36.7 percentage points with only 59% of pupils in the poorest schools passing last year.

Something is going horribly wrong in quintile 1 schools in these provinces. The quality of education in the poorest communities is regressing, and these children will continue to be trapped in the cycle of poverty as a result.

SADTU’s role in this disgraceful state of affairs will be fully exposed by the impending ‘Jobs for Cash’ report.

The report will show that not only does SADTU have control of the schools in these communities; SADTU has a toxic stranglehold over the provincial education departments in which these schools fall. 

Minister Motshekga has committed to releasing the ‘Jobs for Cash’ report on 6 May, and we trust that she will make good on that promise.

The hard work will then start to rid our education system of SADTU ‘state capture’, and ensure that every child, no matter the economic status of the community in which they live, will be afforded a quality education.

Issued by Gavin Davis MP, DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education, 18 April 2016