The fun part of the hysteria last week [or was it the week before] over the 2500 high school girls who became pregnant in Gauteng last year was the way the Education department carefully, and reasonably, absolved themselves of responsibility for the events. The listeners to Five FM largely absolved the ed dept as well with about two thirds of callers to the popular morning drive through programme blaming both parties to the event giving rise to the pregnancy- the 'fuckees' in fact.
I think overall that that was a reasonable response, in the same way that I don't think that the government can be responsible for the crime wave, notwithstanding that alleged high levels of corruption may well provide a guiding spirit to facilitate the growth of the 'gimmee' philosophy.
Obviously the ed dept can't be blamed if a couple of kids are shagging each other during break, after break or after school- there was no suggestion in the reports that the girls had all been raped by lust crazed educators although there were suggestions that many of them may have gotten pregnant by alleged 'sugar daddies'. Nonetheless I do feel a case can be made for blaming the State for the pregnancies and the crime and the fact that huge numbers of kids are apparently dropping out of school along the way to the so-called Matric exam [the national senior certificate]. The school experience has become less personal somehow through an obsession with bureaucratic process.
All too many kids are into dope, booze and sex and all too many teachers are so harassed with completing the paperwork on the continuous assessment of what skills and outcomes the darlings are discovering today, that the entire learning thing has become secondary and the supervision more cursory by default. I would have suggested that it was an unintended outcome and have suggested this in the past. Now though after a series of interactions this week I am not so sure- The question that is foremost in my mind on reviewing this journey, that I shall now take you upon is why is the educator and the information that was good enough for Nelson Mandela no longer good enough for his descendents?
One of the core rationales that I have been given over the past year when I spent a period of time undergoing some training in the new obsession assessment was that it is no longer enough for a child to demonstrate that it is smarter than its cellphone.
The old system cherished memory and the new system cherishes self reliance and aims top foster creative thought- the first signs are not good for the efficacy of this system and after what I have found out this week I believe more and more that the new system with its overwhelming burden of labour to distract the so-called 'educator' is producing a generation of no nothing, mall informed sweethearts.
This opinion is not entirely based on my continuous amazement at the general ignorance of anything outside movies film stars movies and fashion as represented by the continuity announcers, particularly, on UJFM, which as you know is my favourite radio station. One would have thought that a broad general knowledge would have been derigeur for the job but perhaps there are not a great many takers. Plus the young presenters, broadly freedom's children are perfectly indicative of our age. In many ways they personify what Nietszsche said waay back about the new youth: 'At first they will be more ignorant than the educated men of the present, for they will have UNLEARNT much-' Based on what I learned this week I think el Frederico N would be chortling in his grave.
Something odd has happened in the new age in our Post-revolutionary area. School has become so complex and problematic that huge numbers of kids are opting out, dropping out and generally giving up on the whole idea and the pregnancies and the unwanted children that accompany them are both compounding this and are simultaneously a symptom thereof. For these children it is as Nietzsche continued:
' - their hallmark from the educated point of view will be just their lack of science [knowledge], their indifference and inaccessibility to all the good and famous things-'
In the past week I have spoken with three unrelated people in random unplanned meeting who all in one way or another have an involvement in education matters.
The first person is involved in skills upgrading in a rural part of the country. She spoke of an absence of resources, of overcrowded classrooms, of school classrooms under trees, of schools without latrines, and when I suggested that this was surely no longer a norm but represented isolated instances she muttered the word 'Potemkin'.
Potemkin? I asked
Yes- he was the guy who invented the ultimate 'spin', creating fake villages to indicate a happy population when Queen Catherine [the Great] came to visit her domains over which he held some sway. He lined her route with illusions of happy villages and villagers and she never saw the wastelands ocross the hillsides or down in the dales.
So you are suggesting that the public is being lied to I asked
Hmmf she grunted and refused to commit herself further, citing irreconcilable issues with her own conscience. She was, she thought, grabbing the money and running with it for 'consultancy' services, because like everyone else she has to pay the rent and send her kids to school and so on. Simultaneously she was enraged over the glaring inadequacies of the new system after more than a decade of liberation; and more money pumped into education over the period 1994 till now than quite possibly over the preceding century.
There is plenty of money for grandiose parties, she said venomously, and events where hordes of 'dignitaries turn up to some grande events like basketball tournaments and school soccer contests all 'Potemkinly' constructed to create the illusion of progress, and everyone gluttonises their fill and no one ever pays any attention to the kids.
But, she said, the real truth is that fewer than 6% of candidates are passing maths and science in the annual matric assessment rituals and a fair chunk of that figure comes from a handful of privileged schools. And that figure has not changed over the past ten years. If anything the results are getting worse.
Perhaps what we see here is the secret bitter legacy of apartheid, I suggested.
'Maybe you're right after all she sighed reluctantly and I grinned a grin the Cheshire cat would have died for.
We've known each other since a first year tut class forty years ago, and later we were part of an illegal squat in an apartment block in Braamfontein at the red hot end of the sixties. She has always regarded me as a polite form of fascist, and rarely makes contact of her own free will. Every few years I bump into her and we bring each other up to date on shared friends and family events- and of course the world of current affairs as they affect each of us. Perhaps from her perspective I am a polite form of fascist- I am an unashamed libertarian economist and promoter of the free market system which means I promote the truth of the Market to always trump the opinions of the Commune.
As a libertarian democrat though I have always preferred to accept that 'folks are queer', as they say in the Welsh valleys, and I have pragmatically learned to live with the likely possibility that when people say one thing, they often mean something else; and that lying was an integral part of the resistance struggle, and a habit built up over three hundred years will not alter in less than another three hundred. My old friend belongs to that 'eternal hope' school of disbelief and enjoys being disappointed when expectations are dashed.
But that wasn't strictly what we were talking about. That was simply a comment on the sub-text of her remark. How we live always with expectations and consequent judgements. Way back in the early days of the revolution there was a massive regrouping of positions and roles as the struggle exiles returned and had to muscle in on the locals who had stayed to fight the good fight at home- gradually the exiles won out and one remembers the fear amongst those who were uncertain of a place- in an abyss. The secret legacy of apartheid was losing your job as a struggle hero once the problem [of the apartheid thing was solved.] In a world where jobs are scarce one hangs on to what one has got.
I know you, she said, and I hate the fact that you seem to be right again. As long as the problem of 'no schools' exists; or few resources, or disintegrating standards of performance, are the norm, everyone will be employed in solving the problem-
Solving it will result in redeployment or worse redundancy- for simple people this is a deadly equation and actually in my opinion reasonable.
That is why she is always so exasperated- the worst part of scepticism is that it is so Pyrrhic as a reader recently observed about another blog.
Perhaps that maths and science figure will double over the next thirty years I said, by way of consolation, this new system needs time to bed in. Privately some things have always puzzled me. Where do the textbooks and the blankets go?
Every year millions of textbooks are printed and distributed [I believe] to schools all over the country. By the end of the year they all seem to have vanished and need to be replaced. On the other hand I have seen books [ my children's for instance when they were at school] that seemed to have been through ten or twelve pairs of hands before they were in current use. I'm sure there is a rational explanation but I would like to know what it is - Do millions of textbooks go to feed bonfires each year end, do they become doorstoppers and the basis of paper mache dolls- where do the textbooks go overnight- and of course I do understand that in some so called 'learning areas' the content is changing by the month necessitating a completely new round of textbooks annually-What a curious business no wonder vast amounts of money and other resources are "vanished" each year.
And the blankets seem to disappear as well. Each year millions of blankets are collected for the poor and dispossessed and by next year they've all disaapeared-Yet I still have blankets in my house that I used in that Braamfontein squat nearly forty years ago-a tad threadbare but nonetheless still serviceable, so I'm sure they were 'built to last' as they say..
It's no use doubling the rate of maths and science passes in thirty years she said, we need it to double next year. She replied with that delightful martyred tone that aggrieved liberal ladies like to assume: raising the backs of their hands to their forehead. 'Oh dear we have tried and the natives are so uncooperative.' Swoon.
I left her to ponder the inequities of her random life and not wishing to offend her by suggesting that failure to perform was a normal part of life for most people, and why should the ed dept people be exceptions to that rule, I went off in search of a nutritious guzzle of Windhoek at one of my favourite beer dispensaries.
While nourishing myself thus in Braamfontein's old Kitchener Room, and slurping up the delicious Falkland calamari's served up in that excellent establishment, I engaged in conversation with a man who said he taught some esoteric form of science at the local Uni' and had recently returned from a journey that sounded like the worst advertisement for air travel since 9/11 rendered air travel the most horribly efficient way to go from a to b.
After listening to the man's description of queuing in a series of snaking intersecting lines, not knowing for long periods of time whether he was heading for Jozi or had inadvertently stumbled into the line-up for Moscow, I asked him why a rational scientist like himself would subject himself to such a ghastly ordeal, which sounds as though it would completely undo all the stress relieving expense of a holiday abroad.
No I went to a conference he explained and it was paid for so that made it easier.
Probing further regarding the conference there didn't seem to be any particular outcome except that he had had luck meeting people who were pursuing similar veins of research to his.
Which was, I asked?
He smiled the smile of a man who has a secret joke and is about to pounce on you. 'Proving to vast numbers of people that the world is not flat.' he said.
'Yeah right.' I tossed back with the disbelief my baby would reveal if I said that there was really no such thing as "All Stars".
You are joking? I said after he was quiet for a while.
I wish I were. It is a huge problem with underdevelopment that a staggering number of people still believe the earth is flat- they've never had any reason to believe otherwise.
Well most people on the planet have never used a telephone either so I imagine it doesn't matter...they are not going to tell anyone... are they?
That comment come from the Accountant, another regular at the pub who was unhappy that i was monopiolising the flat earth man. The accountant said that he didn't care if people thought the earth was flat as long as they could read Virgil.
I suppose that the next thing you are going to tell me is that these people are teaching maths and science in the system, I was sarcastic: two sad lefties in one day was a bit scary. When lefties become cynics we are in trouble. If the people who believe in change are in despair then whither progress.
Well you didn't hear it from me- he said eventually, sounding grumpy.
I changed the subject. If you were in India for a science education conference what is the buzz on this idea the minister tossed out some months ago about hiring a parcel of south Asian Underemployed scimath teachers and bringing them here to uplift the masses.
The old scientist became quite perky at that question and hared off into a discourse about how India shared so many values with SA and has a more established tradition of democratic governance. He also claimed that the government was actively pursuing the idea and was attempting to engage people with a sound grasp of English as well which was unlikely to be all that useful in the majority of our local schools where English is not just a foreign language but something almost exotic.
Then he delved off into contextual issues and said that he doubted that the Indian doctors were likely to be much more useful than the Cuban doctors who had encountered many difficulties in the practical implementation of their tasks- More Potemkinisms I thought. The Cubans were a subject we all stayed clear of and hoped we never had to be attended by one.
The revolution requires that we set our standards lower so that all people can aspire to reach them i said, stirring the pot slightly.
Well then you must start to accept that the world is flat, he replied.
Then he left us to go to adjoining drinking place where he didn't have to mix with peasant people who were not at the university and thought the idea that there were hordes of people who genuinely believed the earth to be flat was hysterical.
The following day I relayed Flatearther's tale to a man who edits scientific textbooks. He told me that a high school science book, on which he had recently been working had been, not only rejected by some relevant steering committee, but also banned.
Wow was it that bad I asked. He has been telling me for years that the standard of textbook he had to edit was a terrifying testimony to the glaring inadequacies of the writers, so it didn't strike me as odd.
Actually, he said, I thought it would be rejected on the diagrams used, which were often inappropriate - The theory was pretty sharp for a change. But they accepted the pictures and said that the theory was too often inconclusive and was filled with inaccuracies. They said mainly though, that it was filled with assumptive inconclusive statements.
I didn't know that you could have inconclusive statements in science or maths I said- I thought inconclusive statements were the prerogative of my own discipline - economics where we always joke that they ask the same questions every year in the examinations - they simply alter the answers. On the other hand I'm more of an economic historian because I was never a great boff in mathematics; so perhaps you can have inconclusive statements.
So give me an example I asked.
Okay here's one he tossed back. The book contains a definition of something called an 'inelastic collision' - It says: 'If two bodies collide and then move on together as one compound object such a collision is called Inelastic.'
So what was inconclusive about that statement? I asked it seems pretty obvious.
Well that is what worries me, he replied, I don't know.
There is a trend he said towards indigenous science and indigenous mathematics, he said -
You mean there is more than one science and more than one mathematics? I was surprised but not incredulous I've lived long enough to expect anything as normal. I've heard from other sources that contemporary science textbooks refer to grain bins for grain storage and diggings holes in the ground for grain storage, on the basis that grain silos are a thing of the "white controlled" past and that storage holes in the ground are a valid context for the rural kids who have no toilets classrooms or textbooks.
So what will this mean if the government brings out hordes of south Asian maths and science teachers, which I understand is under consideration. I asked.
'They'll be fucked' he said, not intending me to take the word literally. There's an 'intelligent design' feel to most of the newer textbooks: almost 'And in de beginning dere were trees and stones man-.' I figured Jamaica was in now we were hoping to lift the world cup in that place and he was watching too much teevee.
By the way, he said: I also think we may find ourselves in competition with the Americans for left-over South Asian schoolteachers because, from what I'm reading elsewhere, the trend against maths and science has become so deeply rooted in that country, in part prompted by the 'intelligent design' lobby that they could actually be shifting towards the long post-imperial decline that has so deeply afflicted other great nations in the past. 'Dey entering de long sleep´ he said 'Dey rely for years now on expat teachers and since 9/11 de immigration people make it harder to recruit dem - you know de Americans dey tink everyone's a terrorist, forgetting dat dey de biggest terrorists mon'.
Okay- I didn't want to pursue that journey I was still trying to figure out how the inelastic collision could relate to inelastic supply.
Over the weekend I read an article in the January [2007] edition of 'The Teacher' [newspaper] in which one David Macfarlane takes issue with the Edu' minister's alleged evasiveness in dealing with the declining performance of schoolkids following last year's disappointing results. [Opening Pandor{a}'s box] He confirmed what my old friend said about the less than 6% of kids passing maths and science although he refers to a new realism after years of absolute Potemkinising by the previous minister. He didn't comment on where the 6% had been schooled.
Inferring from Macfarlane's article and not ignoring the random observation of three unrelated education professionals I now suspect that my optimistic assertion that pass rates in scimath could double in the next thirty years is probably just that- optimistic.
How does this help us to face a future that must be based on the exploitation of such know-how that accompanies a deep understanding of maths and science? I don't have an answer and it bothers me that maybe we have entered into a regressive period of knowledge rejection; as part of a rejection process we seem to be undergoing deep down against western values. Why else for instance do we tacitly support the machination of a tyrant next door to us and prevaricate over the conditions in Myann Mar [Burma] [sic].
I do think that the nation is being poorly served though by whatever strategy is in place. 6% of last year's Matrics graduated with maths and science and in all probability more than half that number came from private schools funded by after tax income from parents. That 6% amounts to considerably less than 25000 people.
According to Macfarlane we need 20,000 teachers a year just to replace the ones leaving the profession. We also need tens of thousands of accountants, civil engineers, electrical engineers, local government specialists in areas like water reticulation and sewage removal and a whole battery of other technically competent citizens and according to a SASOL spokesperson recently all these skills are in grievous global undersupply- so we are competing with richer countries for these scarce people as well.
The really troubling part of this whole story though is that this pitiful 6% outpouring of talent from our edu-system really represents less than 1% of all the kids who started the journey to Matric 2006 back in 1995. More than seventy percent of kids drop out before they get to the end of the journey- 2500 last year from pregnancy alone in one province. And the education department acted surprised when they 'found out' last year about the drop out rate - like what were they doing for twelve years? And this broadly incompetent collective seems to consider itself blameless.
Let us get it straight. The education department has produced a system that seems to produce one maths matriculant for every two hundred enrolments this hardly seems a paragon of productive output given that this function absorbs about a quarter of Mr Manuel's budget..
So after all that, what are we, the taxpayer, getting for our money aside from a bundle of pregnant schoolgirls?
Keep on bloggi' folks.
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