Monthly Archives: May 2016

The Ministerial Task Team Report into the sale of posts – colloquially referred to as the Jobs-for-Cash report has finally be released by the DBE. Full report HERE. The report is far-reaching, frank and damning. We all owe a huge thanks to Professor Volmink and his team for their investigation and this much needed report. When corruption is so systemic, as it is in SA education, to write a report like this without fear or favour is the mark of a deep conviction that something has to change.

I have taken out a few excerpts for those who don’t have time to read the whole (285-page report:

• “All the Deputy Directors-General in the Department of Basic Education are SADTU members and attend meetings of that Union. (p93)
• “The Gauteng MEC said that “the major Union is in charge of education” in his Province” (p.81)
• HOD North West – “He said that his Department has so many cases of wrongdoing that if he asked the SAPS to follow them up, it would amount to closing down the Department. ” (p87)
• “Of the 81 cases that were investigated, 38 cases provided grounds for either reasonable suspicion requiring further investigation or point directly to wrongdoing amounting to criminal conduct. (Reasonable suspicion exists when there are objective grounds or empirical facts that form the basis for the suspicion as opposed to mere conjecture.) “ (p18)
• North West – “When the claims were made in the City Press in April 2014, the NWDOE appointed a forensic company to investigate the claim that SADTU had influenced the appointment of senior officials in the provincial department. The report, dated 15 August 2011, was made available to the MTT. Further investigation by the MTT indicates that in 9 cases investigated by the forensic investigative company, there was no evidence to support the allegations in 2 cases. However in 6 cases SADTU officials or representatives exerted improper influence; however is no evidence of money being involved. In one case, a senior district official acted improperly in support of the promotion of a friend. In none of the cases was action taken in respect of the findings.“ (p20)
• Gauteng – “Following claims made in City Press in May 2014, The GDE acted promptly and appointed a firm of attorneys to investigate the claims of improper influence at school level. The detailed report included information from both written and verbal statements and concluded, inter alia, that posts are being sold for cash, that the parties operate in networks, and that there is a climate of fear that keeps people from exposing these practices. The GDE then moved to take disciplinary action, but the majority of witnesses did not wish to give signed statements.This outcome is unacceptable as in this case there is evidence that a network exists that is selling posts for cash. Steps need to be taken to support the individuals who were willing to take the risk of speaking. This requires further investigation by a competent authority. It is not acceptable that a teacher who is courageous enough to report alleged corrupt acts was told must be told to go to her local police station. This cannot be acceptable. In several cases where teachers and other informants have acted with enormous courage to report gross abuse no action has been taken.” (p20)
• “RECOMMENDATION 4: That the Department of Basic Education regain control of administering the education system in all Provinces so that clear distinctions are established between the roles and functions of the DBE and the concerns of Teacher Unions.” (p21)
• “The deployment of officials to the Department from Unions weakens the Department because those so deployed often struggle to demonstrate that they are able to balance the complexity of competing loyalties and demands.” (p25)
• “RECOMMENDATION 10: That both school- and office-based educators cease to be office- bearers of political parties and that educators in management posts (including school principals) be prohibited from occupying leadership positions in Teacher unions.” (p25)
• “If ‘undue influence’ (a polite name for corruption) is a result of cadre deployment, then cadre deployment is likely to lead to corruption. It is the impression of the Task Team that such corruption is endemic to greater and lesser degrees in the entire education system and that as a first move to cleanse the system, cadre deployment should not be permitted.” (p25)
• “RECOMMENDATION 15: That the South African Council of Educators (SACE) be reconceptualised and freed from Union and political domination.” (p28)
• “All the Deputy Directors-General in the Department of Basic Education are SADTU members and attend meetings of that Union. That being the case, it is not improbable to say that schooling throughout South Africa is run by SADTU. The significance of cadre deployment in South Africa’s education system is discussed below in Chapter Four.” (p93)
• “Early in May, the North West’s Deputy HOD was held hostage overnight by SADTU officials over the unresolved matter of temporary teachers.” (p.82)

Some media reports are starting to emerge in Times Live and Citizen but it will be interesting once the journalists and commentators get their teeth into the detailed report.

[Guest post – Stephen Taylor]

The Statistician General (SG) recently responded to my letter to the Business Day. A full version of what I have written is available here. I would simply reiterate what I wrote initially. In brief:

Numerous newspapers and media outlets were running with headlines such as “Black youth less educated now than 20 years ago” (Business Day) and “Stats SA claims black youth are less skilled than their parents” (Daily Maverick). The articles were referencing a recent Stats SA report as well as comments made by the SG.

My position is simple: These claims are factually incorrect and Stats SA reports and data do not actually say this. Note that I did not “adjudge a mistake” in the actual Stats SA report. I do not know exactly what the SG said at the release, which may have lead the media to run with the headlines they did, but I speculated about what I thought might have been causing the confusion.

The SG’s response has confirmed that I was right about what had caused the confusion. He had in mind a very specific “progression ratio” – the ratio of degree graduates to matriculants. This ratio may have been decreasing for black and coloured youth, but this is simply because the increase in degree graduates has not kept pace with the increase in matriculants. Importantly, both the likelihood of achieving a matric and the likelihood of achieving a degree have been fast increasing, especially for black youth. This means it cannot possibly be true that black and coloured youth are worse off educationally than their parents, which is the message the media were propagating. None of the media reports said anything about this “progression ratio” which the SG has now referred to. Instead the media were reporting that lower proportions of the entire black and coloured population were attaining a degree. And that isn’t true.

According to Higher Education data, the number of black degree graduates per year has increased more than four-fold from 11 339 in 1994 all the way to 48 686 in 2014.[Note: New SU Working Paper published by Hendrik van Broekhuizen last week on this topic]. This is much faster than population growth. For white youth, this number has essentially remained flat at roughly 20 000 graduates per year. Of course there is still a lot of inequality – these numbers mean whites are still about 6 times more likely to attain a degree than black youth.

This “progression ratio” may have some analytic value, as the SG points out. For example, it may reflect a greater policy prioritisation of secondary education relative to higher education. But this indicator must be clearly explained and it also has its limitations. I cannot imagine anyone celebrating improved educational outcomes if the numbers of black and coloured youth attaining a degree had gone down, while the numbers attaining a matric had gone down even faster, leading to an increase in the degree-to-matric progression ratio!

I know progress hasn’t been as fast as we need. But it is far from the truth to suggest educational outcomes have regressed.

Hi education folk

We’ve recently been awarded a grant by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and DFID to do research on exceptional township and rural primary schools in three provinces – Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo. I will be leading the project together with a great team of co-investigators and researchers: Ursula Hoadley (UCT), Jaamia Galant (UCT), Nick Taylor (JET), Servaas van der Berg (ReSEP), Gabi Wills (ReSEP) and Linda Zuze (HSRC).

Given that we will be using a matched-pair approach, the aim of the project is to to firstly identify at least 10 high-performing township/rural schools in each of the three provinces and then match those schools to ‘typical’ neighbouring schools (thus 60 schools in total). The project will run for 2.5 years (beginning June 2016) and will involve in-depth qualitative research, administering and analysing assessments, creating new school-leadership and management instruments and analysing the data emerging from the project.

At the moment we are looking for a part time (50%) project administrator to help us with the administration relating to the project. The full job-advert can be found here. I include a short extract:

The ideal candidate should be an efficient and organised person with some experience in managing the administrative side of academic projects. They should be friendly and able to communicate well, as well as plan effectively and take initiative to solve problems as they arise. They should also be able to liaise with (1) the funders – DFID/ESRC, (2) Stellenbosch University finance and administration personnel, and (3) the 5 co- investigators as well as other researchers and field-workers. The job will include following up with government officials, managing flights and accommodation, planning reporting cycles, managing time-sheets, budgets and funding claims, proof-reading and printing questionnaires etc.

They should also be friendly 🙂 Basically we’re looking for a go-to admin guru to help us with this project. If your skills and experience are such that you would also be able to help on the non-admin research side (doing research-assistant work or interviews/assessment) then we may involve you in more than an administrative role. However this would be on top of your administrative responsibilities, and in such a case the remuneration is somewhat negotiable. It is a part-time position and it’s based at Stellenbosch University (in the Economics Department) so remuneration would be in line with university salary scales (I believe it is about post-level 11, although it would be 50% of the amount stated here) and partially dependent on qualifications and/or experience.

If you’re interested in working with this great team on an exciting new project please do apply 🙂 (and if you know of anyone who may be interested please forward this on to them!)

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: 12 May 2016