OPINION - As I watch videos of violence at schools across the country, there seems to be one school after another in some sort of fix.
Pupils locking out teachers, teachers fornicating with pupils, officials selling posts, unions fraught with corruption, union bosses getting fatter while members get thinner, and excuses are made to protect a system which is totally bad for South Africa as a whole.
How can a teacher be expected to answer for a lazy pupil that has been progressed from foundation phase through to matric? The system does not allow for a pupil to repeat a grade in a phase more than once, for example, if you fail grade 1, you cannot fail grade 3, even if you should.
Now we have the Education Department questioning its own system and why there’s such a high percentage of these pupils pushed through the system, and teachers are being forced to answer for a system that many don’t necessarily agree with.
This encourages laziness and pretty soon we are going to be a nation of idiots where common sense has gone out the window.
Eventually the university pass requirements will be downgraded so South Africa looks like a nation of professionals, but the qualifications will not be worth the paper they are written on.
Pussyfooting and covering up the cracks can only work to an extent before problems surface.
Well-performing schools become under-performing schools when teachers without the knowledge and experience are made principals.
Ironically, and I note with concern, the children of the politicians who serve as ministers, MECs, HODs, MPs and MPLs do not attend public schools.
Is that a sign that the public school system is not good enough for their families, but fine for the general public?
Clean up the system, get rid of progressed pupils and let them progress based on their own ability to absorb, learn and regurgitate. If they don’t make it, they don’t get pushed through.
Bring back corporal punishment, put power back in the hands of the teacher and institute measures that deal with errant pupils who abuse and assault teachers.