Destroying seeds of our future
We tolerate an education system that robs our children of opportunities, writes Mamphela Ramphele
Mar 5, 2011 11:42 PM
Mamphela Ramphele, Sunday Times
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Successful societies focus on ensuring that future generations perform better than past and present ones. The crisis of underperformance of our education and training system lies at the heart of the growth of inequality, continuing poverty and dependence on welfare transfers.
We have descended into an unsustainable situation, with 15 million welfare grant recipients supported by six million taxpayers. The majority of these welfare transfers are child grants extended to those under the age of 18. Child grants amount to R35.6-billion - 16% of the social protection budget allocation, in 2011, of R146.9-billion.
Some analysts are warning that our society is being hit by a teenage pregnancy tsunami. The Times reported recently that, in Gauteng alone, 5000 schoolgirls are preparing to give birth in 2011. For every age cohort of 1.5 million starting school each year, just over 500000 end up sitting for final year examinations. Less than 70% of these candidates get a high school diploma - of which only 20% are good enough to give the pupil access to higher education.
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