Dedicated teachers capable of changing SA’s dysfunctional schools

The late Dr Peliwe Lolwana, a superb education thinker, loved repeating this saying from measurement circles: “you cannot fatten a pig by weighing it”.

My goodness, we have weighed our maths and science pupils over and over again in both national and international assessments and for 30 years we get the same result — we are bottom of the world in both these gateway subjects.

It is time for SA to withdraw from these expensive subject assessments because at this point, they serve no purpose other than to remind us that over 30 years this government has not moved the needle one inch when it comes to learning gains among our children.

Just released, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) placed SA last among 59 participating countries.

In Grade 4 maths, SA scored 362 below the international average of 503 or Singapore’s top score of 615. It was worse in science, where we scored 308, well below the international average of 494.

If this massive failure of the school system does not make you sick, wait for this. Because we are regularly bottom of the pile in earlier assessments, the international authorities did something that could even make a black man blush — while Grade 4 and 8 pupils were tested in other countries, we were allowed to enter Grade 5 and 9 pupils — that is, older children, as compensation. I hang my head in shame. Have we no pride?

Let me level with you. This is not going to change for the simple reason that the political elites have their own children and grandchildren in the top-end, well-resourced schools and could not care a damn about the majority of our children who remain stuck in poor, working-class and often dysfunctional schools.

If they did care, these repeated shameful results would have had the president call for a state of emergency. He is no longer even shocked, his go-to posture when bad news slips past the cantankerous Minister in the Presidency (the one who wants to “smoke out” underground miners as if they were rats) all the way to his polished oak desk.

There will be no systemic change to the national school system simply because the current government cannot and will not concede that education is in an enormous mess.

If it is true, as the weekend papers claim, that the ANC bigwigs are trying to dislodge the newish minister of basic education, then you must know things are really bad.

Schools have been effectively closed for pupils as principals and teachers rush to finish marking and prepare report cards and plan for 2025. I see this daily. But I also witnessed something else this past week that gives me renewed hope.

At a school I work at, one of the most dedicated maths teachers called his Grade 11s to class after everybody else had left for home in November. The school is in an unstable, working-class environment where any number of incidents on any day of the week can bend the trajectory of young lives towards misery and defeat.

Yet every day this teacher works these young people individually and in groups to prepare them for mathematics in Grade 12.

On Tuesday morning this week he sent me a video of his class in action and with these pure maths pupils surrounding this tireless teacher, the announcement was made — they had practically finished the trigonometry syllabus for 2025.

That is, when the new year starts, these maths pupils will have a significant advantage over matriculants anywhere in SA because they can start revising for the final exams even as they deepen their knowledge of this important subject.

Imagine if every teacher in SA had this drive and vision for their subject. Imagine every teacher saw their children as top maths performers who were destined to succeed before they even started the final grade of high school.

Imagine a teacher who does not outsource “extra maths” to well-paid tutors but does this salaried work herself even as she attends to end-of-year admin like every other teacher.

Imagine a teacher that does not give up because the department of education did not deliver all the textbooks or supplies but decides, rather, to make things work in his classroom with or without the authorities.

So, stop measuring the children’s mathematical competences; we already know the situation is dire as the TIMMS results once again confirm.

Replace routines of measurement with consistent teaching. Use all that marking time set aside for assessment and shift those resources to ensure efficacious teaching.

The truth is, the pig might squeal its discontents about being measured and compared to others on a standardised scale for the umpteenth time, but it is not going to get fatter in the process.