Gate Keeping In Basic Education
Introduction
The statistics on the national matric pass rate will have dropped by 11. 1% if almost 70 000 progressed learners had written their full final exams. These learners are made to write their exams over two years on what is called gatekeeping mechanism. The learners that are not academically inclined were retained in grade 10 and grade 11 to make the schools’ matric pass rate look good.
The progressed learners are expected to pass their matric final exam yet, they arefailing. According to Motshekga (2015) following the announcement of matric results. The matric national pass rate has dropped to 70%. This was from 75, 8% achieved in 2014. If so-called progressed learners had not been added to the total, the pass rate would have been 74%. The progressed learners in the statement referred to the learners in grade 10 and grade 11 who failed grade in the past and repeat the grade, and moved to the next grade. As the Department of Education policy states that a learner can only fail once per phase.
The purpose of school is to build the learners. Education is the great engine of personal development; it is through education that the daughter of peasant can become a doctor; that the son of a mineworker can become a head of the mine; that the child of farm worker can become the president of great nation. ” Nelson Mandela.
Some secondary schools in Bloemfontein are focusing on making the Free State province number one when it comes to matric results, but the learners suffers the most as the combination the subjects they are doing is not making sense such as, Economics, Business studies, Maths Literacy, Afrikaans, Sotho, English and Life Orientation. Here Afrikaans replaces Accounting. Teachers selected learner’s irrelevant subjects that cannot contribute to their career path. Another gap in the policy the conditions of employment in some cases are not conductive to learning especially in public schools, the ratio of teachers to learners is very high. The government should employ more teachers and incentive them well.
The Department of Basic Education should also establish a policy whereby the poor performance learners will account for their poor results. This starting from grade 10 and grade 11. It takes two to tango. The learner should be given task of going through the entire studies to check what went wrong, and also give report of how will the studies be improved.
Review of related literature
The debate about gate keeping on the newspaper article seemed very interesting. The intervention of gate-keeping mechanism proved that the 2017 South African national matric pass rate would have fallen 11. 1% if almost 70 000 progressed learners had written their full final exams. Surprisingly, the literature on progressed learners does not include any reference to the statement. A positive respond on the topic was witnessed from Professor Felix Mainge, a professor in educational leadership and policy studies at University of Witwatersrand, said that allowing the progressed learners to write over two years had “to large extent been used as agate-keeping kind of mechanism. ” In addition to the statement Prof. Maringe was quoted, giving learners the chance to write exams over two years was “an excellent idea” because not all learners had the capacity to handle and pass exams in one go. In order for the learners to be permitted to write over two years a school principal had to consult with parents first. Another expect on the research was asked about gate-keeping and this was the Professor Sarah Gravett, dean of education faculity at the University of Johannesburg had to say “Ultimately it’s about giving the progressed learners the opportunity to succeed, taking into consideration that of the learners come from difficult socioeconomic circumstances. They were not necessarily in the best schools with best teachers. If one needs to give support and opportunity for learners to succeed. ” The third, official Basil Manuel, executive director of National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa added that the chances of the progressed learners of passing in one sitting is very slim. The learners can still do the multiple exam opportunity and gate-keeping is not such a bad idea as the is nothing in the system to support the progressed learners. Gate-keeping is the method that will ensure that the learners are not completely crushed by having failed badly.
The beginning of new era after the abolishment of apartheid in 1994 played the significant role in desegreting the school system. The Black learners felt the heat of being neglected under the regime of apartheid, but are now free to attend the former whites-only schools which resulted in suburban mixed-ethnicity schools. Even though there is opportunity for Black learners to attend model C Schools, most of the Black learners are still attending township and rural schools. The standard of education is not the best due to the deprived socio-economic contexts. The township schools are overcrowded and poorly resourced, have poor facilities, and have little access to services such as career counselling and remedial education. The learners from township account 80% of the total South African enrolment in the elementary and secondary education, and they are the main focus to the educational progress. The compulsory schooling in South Africa ends in grade 9.
There is a huge dropout rates in secondary schools and tertiary educational levels experienced in South Africa. In 2011, only 44% of Black learners between the aged of 23 and 24 had completed secondary school in South Africa. Approximately 60% of the learners that enter the schooling system complete grade 12 and 40% of the learners dropout of the system after repeated failure”. It is too bad to see learners dropping out of school and it does not serve anybody good, because most adolescents find themselves idle once they dropped out of the school.
