The divide between secondary and tertiary education has grown wider and wider over the past decade.

While the government grows the number of students obtaining a matric certificate by lowering the standards of education, the universities have, for the most part, maintained their degree standards.

What this means is that students are underprepared for tertiary education. They arrive in undergrad with limited writing, comprehension and critical thinking skills – skills that take years to cultivate, and that the university does not have the time or resources to teach on top of the curriculum required for the degree, despite their best efforts.

Up until March of this year, the minimum requirement for admission to degree studies was subject to a list of 20-credit subjects known as the “designated subject list”, reports MyBroadband.

However, on 2 March, the designated subject list was revoked by the department of higher education.

This means that the minimum admission requirements for degree study changed to an achievement of 50% or more in any four subjects.

…This means that learners can achieve an NSC Bachelor’s pass with subjects like dance studies, design, and tourism.

The only subject that doesn’t count towards university entry is life-orientation. Small mercies.

In case you were wondering, a Matric Bachelor’s Pass used to be called a Matric Exemption.

Here are the new requirements for entry to degree studies:

• Pass one official language at Home Language level at 40% or more.
• Pass 4 subjects at 50% or more.
• Pass 2 other subjects at a minimum of 30%.
• Meet the language requirement for entry to further study.

The effects of this are going to be twofold. First, the universities are going to be flooded with applications due to the ease with which someone can now obtain a degree entry matric pass.

Secondly, as Flip Smit, a demographer and former vice chancellor of the University of Pretoria points out, the “the ease of achieving a Bachelor’s pass also misleads learners into thinking they can complete a degree course”.

Professor Jonathan Jansen from the Faculty of Education at Stellenbosch University is calling the matric results a “disgraceful freak show” – and he’s not wrong.

Jansen said in a column this year that to believe that the 2017 matric pass rate is 75.1%, about 2.5% higher than in 2016, is asking “that you forego common sense”.

Jansen highlighted that:

78% of children cannot read with understanding in Grade 4.
9% of Grade 6 teachers cannot pass a Grade 6 math test.
The pass mark in some subjects is 30%.

“It is not as if the few who passed and even those who graduated with a so-called Bachelor’s pass have a solid academic education to see them through tertiary studies,” he said.

Most of these students will inevitably drop out of university, and the few that make it through are unlikely to complete their degree within the designated time.

He said that this is because the quality of the NSC examination is “so weak in the intellectual demands made of pupils that any fool can scale the 30% (three subjects) and 40% (three subjects including home language) passing hurdles.”

Government’s yearly tinkering with the matric examination system amounts to little more than quick-fix window dressing.

The pass rates go up while the quality of education goes down.

In the end, it’s the students who suffer most.

[source:mybroadband]