Rabia Mayet | rabiamayet@radioislam.co.za

21 January 2025

3 minute read

“A charade that masks reality!” This, according to former statistician general and analyst, Phali Legola, is the “ritualised spectacle” of the final matric exam results that sounds a “hollow victory masking the education crisis”.

The substantial numbers of failures and those who never make it to matric contribute to many South Africans not having an academic or skilled future.

An analysis data by race indicated that the Indian and white communities in the country perform much better at matric, with more than 61% going on to tertiary educational institutions as opposed to their black counterparts. Similarly, the progress of these communities can be assessed by the higher percentage who enter the workforce, as well as the rates of unemployment that have been shown to be four times lower than the rates amongst the black and coloured populations.

By not treating matric results in the correct context and overvaluing this “momentary” victory, Mr Legola says that the president is “missing the point”. As opposed to other developing economies whose focus is education, “we are regressing,” he stated.

While “whites reached the heights they reached because of apartheid,” the Indians, who were as equally affected by racial discrimination as the blacks, still managed to succeed. Over the past 70 odd years, Indians have shown progress that “even surpasses the whites.” Mr Legola says that this may be due to their lower level of social destruction, the upholding of the family structure, and the building of their own schools which allowed them to focus on education.

“Privatising education is not the solution,” he says. In countries like Rwanda, Finland, and Canada, the public schooling system works and has been perfected to the extent that private schools are rare or non-existent. Mr Legola concluded that instead of the government looking at the greater public good, the “lack of participation in the education system by the leaders of this country” has led to the downfall of the public education system in South Africa.