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South Africa: Mbeki Scrapes Education 'Pass'
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
27 December 2007
Posted to the web 28 December 2007
Sue Blaine
Johannesburg
PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has scraped a 52% pass rate for his government's efforts to school SA's children in an international survey by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE).
As SA awaits the release of this year's matric examination results tomorrow, the GCE's report card for the Mbeki government asserted that while SA had greatly improved access to schooling, the country had not overcome quality issues.
Providing universal primary education for all -- what the GCE is focused on measuring -- is one of the United Nations' eight Millennium Development Goals, which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, by the target date of 2015.
"As a regional heavyweight on the political scene, Mbeki has all the potential to be a source of inspiration for others. A large majority of children (in SA) have access to schools all the way up to secondary level, and illiteracy has been kept down to a comparatively low point of less than 20% ... (but) quality issues seem to be troubling him even as he is coming close to UPE (universal primary education)," the GCE said in the report, which resembled a child's school report.
The GCE is an international nongovernmental body that promotes education as a basic human right.
It works to put public pressure on governments and the international community to keep pledges to offer free, compulsory public basic education for all.
Mbeki's government achieved an average of 52%, a C+ grade.
It was placed 50th out of 178 countries surveyed, and fifth in Africa. It was ahead of Zambia and Namibia, but came in behind Mauritius (which topped both the worldwide and sub-Saharan Africa lists); Botswana and Kenya, which tied at eighth place in the sub-Saharan region, with Kenya at 47th on the international list; and Seychelles, second in the sub-Saharan region and eighth overall. Zambia came seventh in the sub-Saharan region and placed 71 overall .
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The GCE gave Mbeki a B- (61%-70%) for political will and equal opportunities, a C+ (51%-60%) for achieving universal basic education, a C- (41%-50%) for transparency and accountability, a D+ (31%-40%) for quality inputs and a D- (21%-30%) in enrolment growth.
"Not only has he (Mbeki) fared badly on subregional examination scores, but he is now faced with a negative trend for primary enrolment.
"Further efforts need to be made to permanently address the imbalances of the past and keep him in one of the global top 50 which he can surely aspire to," the report card said.
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