The true state of South Africa’s schools: South Africa has one of the most unequal school systems in the world. The gap in test scores between the top 20% and the rest is wider than in almost every other country. READ MORE:
. On the one side, there are functional, wealthy schools. On the other, which 85% of our students attend, are poorly funded, dysfunctional schools.
has also realised this and seeks to empower school principals from under-resourced schools by partnering them with business leaders.Seventy-eight percent of Grade 4 learners cannot read for meaning. This statistic is mentioned almost everywhere when it comes to the state of our education. It means that four out of five 10-year-olds can’t understand what they’re reading. In Limpopo, this is as high as 91%. In the Eastern Cape it’s 85%. It’s in this early stage that many learners get left behind.
One of the reasons for the poor reading levels, according to education expert Nick Taylor, is that “the universities are not teaching new teachers how to teach reading. We need to get foundation phase teachers to teach reading effectively. Everything else follows from there.” This is a pressing issue. Youth unemployment is staggeringly high while there’s also a skill shortage in many sectors. We need to find a way to address both those issues simultaneously. As Rebecca Davis put it in her podcast Don’t Shoot The Messenger, principals and teachers need to get students to, “believe deeply that a life awaits them beyond school”.
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