DA calls for independent inquiry into unequal education

20 April 2016

The DA has written to Minister Motshekga calling on her to initiate an independent inquiry into the widening inequality gap in our school system.

A reply to a parliamentary question this week revealed that the matric pass rate in schools in the poorest areas (quintile 1) had dropped from 70.3% in 2013 to 61.6% in 2015. Meanwhile, the matric pass rate in schools in the most affluent areas (quintile 5) remained constant at between 91% and 92%.

The collapse of education in poor communities was highlighted further this week by Stats SA’s “social profile of youth” report. It found that, since 1994, there had been a 2% decline in the proportion of young black South Africans in skilled jobs compared to other race groups. This is undoubtedly the result of poor quality schooling in disadvantaged areas.

Two decades into democracy, and despite investing billions of rands in education, poor black children remain trapped in Apartheid-era patterns of poverty and inequality. And, as the latest data shows, poor black children are falling further and further behind.

The education gap is surely the greatest failing of the ANC government since it assumed office in 1994. Bantu education may be banished from the statute books, but our education system remains terribly unequal.

It is time for Minister Motshekga to focus on education inequality with a laser-like intensity. Her business-as-usual approach is just not good enough.

The DA has written numerous letters to Minister Motshekga calling on her to initiate an independent inquiry into the collapse of education in poor schools. We again call on Minister Motshekga to initiate such an inquiry, as she is empowered to do in terms of section 8(1) of the National Education Policy Act:

"The Minister shall direct that the standards of education provision, delivery and performance throughout the Republic be monitored and evaluated by the Department annually or at other specified intervals, with the object of assessing progress in complying with the provisions of the Constitution and with national education policy..."

We need to know precisely why the performance of our poorest schools has dropped so steeply in the last two years, and we need to arrest the decline with bold new measures to address the widening inequality gap. 

Issued by Gavin Davis MP, DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education, 20 April 2016