February 2011: Leaving school without an education

Top-up business newsletter from Mo Haarhoff at Studio M

Leaving school without an education

By now I have learnt that for me, negative prophecies are usually self-fulfilling. I invariably performed very badly in exams. The only ones I ever enjoyed were IQ tests, which I sat annually during primary school from Standard 2 (Grade 4) for no apparent reason, while my peers sat once, in Grade 7.

Towards the end of my final school year I stood in every class each day while the teacher asked whether I realised that I was about to fail; clearly a strategy planned in the staffroom. I was paraded as the class loser six times daily, possibly with good reason. My peers thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment value as I politely agreed with each teacher that I was indeed aware of the possibility.

I fooled them all, but probably only by the skin of my teeth. They had underestimated how badly I wanted to get out of the controlled atmosphere of an all-girls boarding establishment. When I later did an accounting diploma I also fussed no end, but was surprised by a first-class pass.

I thus have a certain amount of sympathy for all Grade 12s.

The pressure on them is enormous and there are dozens of better ways to test knowledge and understanding under less pressurised conditions.

I think, for instance, that every Grade 12 considering further study should make his or her applications as part of the Life Skills curriculum. Applying for half-a-dozen different courses at six different institutions is a relatively simple Internet exercise, but it is the culmination of understanding which subjects will qualify him (or her) for what and why.

Internet access is an issue, but surely education departments could deploy mobile computer centres or university students (needing money to pay their study fees) with laptops to capture the data for pupils? From there, pupils could motivate their decisions orally in class.

This could at least be classified as fruitful expenditure!

Last week I was asked: ‘How is it possible that a girl with eight distinctions cannot get into any university?’ Although she’s apparently from Cape Town, I have not read about her and know no more of her background, but it could depend on race, choice of courses before and after leaving school, timely application and availability of state financial aid.

She may yet be considered if some who were accepted last November, conditional to passing, failed. But she would unlikely have taken eight subjects unless she thought herself capable of passing them. I would thus assume she also had enough good sense to apply in time.

A more pertinent question: ‘How can it be possible that so many of 2010’s Grade 12s only applied for tertiary education after receiving their results?’

Did they all have so little faith in their ability to pass that none gave any consideration to the next step? How do they choose their matric subjects without some idea of which direction they hope to take? And with that knowledge, what prevented them from meeting the deadline?

Many kids have no real idea how they’ll do in exams. Some, like me, expect to fail them all and others are hopelessly positive when they’ve really not done nearly enough work. But even my low expectations didn’t prevent me from applying early in the year for a place at art school.

Could teacher strike propaganda and mark adjustment have made so much difference to so many?

Or are these kids really only capable of dealing with one thing at a time?

To be honest, the information coming out of even some supposedly good public schools is suspect. In 2004, my son was told that with technical drawing he could become an architect. No other suggestions were offered. The assumption was clearly that he would go on to university which, at the time, did not appear to be financially feasible.

But computer-based design programs and a modicum of calculating ability offer competitive advantage in industrial design, graphic design and draughtsmanship, which in turn can relate to various engineering, architectural and technical disciplines as well as computer-aided design in several different manufacturing sectors.

All of which give hard-working youngsters with flair and talent the means to enter the job market directly, even if they initially earn precious little and make several cups of coffee for their superiors. In a past era, many firms subsidised their employees at technical college block courses and in that manner eventually achieved graduates or near-graduates who had been functionally useful from Day 1.

I managed to stay objective this year until thousands of would-be students queued to make late applications at tertiary institutions and I read of their fury that there are insufficient state subsidies to go around. Obviously, that must have caught Treasury off-guard too.

Then, on SAFM, an electrical engineer complained that he had qualified a year ago but still could not find a job.

What price scarce skills? It was explained that for every qualified electrical engineer, eight technical staff are necessary. And that’s where the scarcity lies, not really with the qualified, but in lower levels.

But then, is it worth businesses’ while wrestling with the proposed new labour laws to hire someone who may not have made the grade because he/she is lazy, unfocussed and could be detrimental to your business? We already cannot compete with other countries on the educational, productivity, salary or the skills’ levels.

So where can we?

The 2011 World Masters Debate Champion Eusebius McKaiser wrote that even our cabinet costs more than those in equivalent-sized European countries. And that these are the people who back our proposed labour laws, despite never having personally created a single job nor successfully managed a small business; the people who discard our Coloureds and Indians in favour of Chinese in the AA stakes.

Competitive debating improves the general knowledge of high-school debaters, compels them to find solutions to problems and eliminates unsound and misleading reasoning in oral argument, he claims.

Trained debaters write and reason better than their peers in academic work and competitive debaters have been among the top academic achievers in the country in the past 10 years, he said. Even those from under-resourced schools tend to outperform their peers.

Debating is a skill that can be taught free of charge in all schools, even at under-privileged ones. It eliminates, McKaiser said, unsound, deceptive and misleading logic and encourages meaningful understanding of statistics, which are of no value unless translated into implications, I believe.

It’s never too late. Don’t you agree that compulsory debating training would be the ideal extramural pastime for our politicians and policymakers?

Which is probably the most important question here...

Studio M’s bottom line: I cannot count how many times I told my son while he grew up: ‘Just answer the question.’ Every time I hear someone on radio or on TV skirt the answer required I seethe with irritation.

Mo