Education, Education, Education

Fellow Democrats,

Welcome to my last newsletter of 2010. Today I will address an issue that I feel strongly about, an issue that is critical to the development of our country, Education.  Over the last few weeks there have been screaming headlines about the dire state of our public education system, from the failing Further Education and Training (FET) colleges to an admission by the Gauteng MEC of Education that almost 50% of our learners are illiterate. The state of our public education system has reached alarming proportions and if left unchecked, it will be a breeding ground for social unrest. Most alarming are the statistics released by the StatsSA Labour Force Survey that more than 2 million young people who are actively looking for employment do not have secondary education. I will focus today on two issues; the failure of the FET colleges and the failure of some universities to gain accreditation from the South African Institute of Charted Accountants (SAICA)

Are our Universities deliberately failing an African Child?

I ask this question based on my interaction with SAICA last week. The reason I initiated the discussion with SAICA was because there has been an outcry about the low number of African Charted Accountants.  From our discussion, I learned that the accounting degree, or BCOM, of four public universities, namely; University of Limpopo, University of Venda, University of Zululand and Walter Sisulu University, are not accredited by SAICA.

What this means for the majority of students who enroll at these universities, is that they must enroll for a further bridging course at an accredited university before pursuing their dreams of becoming charted accountants. There is no guarantee that a student that graduates from any of these four public universities will be accepted by an accredited university for a bridging course. I wonder if the students are informed that their BCOM degree is not accredited by SAICA before they enroll in one of the listed four institutions? What I found shocking from my discussions with SAICA is that most of the issues that prevent the degrees from being accredited can be sorted by a willing administration and university council, yet they are not. Together with the leadership of the DA Youth, we will be fighting this issue going forward, as we believe that students are being deliberately failed by these universities.

Further Education and Training (FET)

If South Africa is to grow economically, one of the areas we need to improve is the training of artisans. Unfortunately the institutions tasked with producing the artisans are failing in their responsibilities. After a report in the Sunday Times newspaper that highlighted the dire state of FET colleges and their high failure rates, I took a trip to one of the FET colleges in Johannesburg to see for myself. The place resembled a neglected institution, the lecturing staff and students alike seemed disinterested in teaching and learning respectively. There are a lot of issues that affect the smooth running of FET colleges, chief amongst them being the resources, including human resources, that are allocated to the colleges.

Some colleges don’t even have equipment for artisans in training to perform practical exercises. No wonder there has been a miserable  4% pass rate. For FET colleges to work there needs to be adequate lecturing staff, effective management and willing students. There needs to be an audit of both the lecturing and management staff to check if they are qualified to perform their duties. The success of FET colleges is also linked to good primary and secondary education, failing which, they will continue to be used as a scapegoat for our weak primary and secondary education system.

Well Wishes for the Festive Season,

Makashule Gana