SA’s education priorities … if it could start from scratch

It is abundantly clear that an approach which regards university education as the only worthy course to improve the lives of the disadvantaged in South Africa is simply out of touch with reality.

In fact, having spent time on the examination committees for professional examinations in two professions over the last 25 years, my overall impression is that universities are not succeeding in producing suitable candidates of quality in sufficient quantities to enter professions.

My observations are that candidates across different professions are able to regurgitate memorised knowledge, but are ill equipped to apply that knowledge to a real-life situation or case study.

This is probably partially the result of the state of educational development in which universities receive their students from the school system. Students starting tertiary education have been spoon-fed in a school system that is focussed on preparing them to pass an examination. In order to ensure sufficient flow-through to comply with subsidy formulae, it seems that some universities have (out of necessity) watered down the core idea of a university as an institution of learning through exploring new frames of reference across disciplines.

Lecturing on a part-time basis at four tertiary education institutions over the last 30 years has disclosed to me a general trend where students were increasingly reluctant to read widely about the subject matter and regarded tertiary studies as another preparation to pass an examination. Students who understand the core idea of university study have become a much rarer phenomenon.

The result is a lack of both a wide frame of reference and a general understanding of a wide body of knowledge to enable students to see new patterns and understand new developments.

This watering down produces graduates with insufficient abilities to adapt to a rapidly changing work environment and labour market.

The skills of sourcing, reading, analysing, thinking, integrating, and applying information and knowledge are not sufficiently developed to ensure a smooth transition into professions. Add to this an insufficient level of numeracy and literacy skills in parts of the population.

This places substantial pressure on professional competency examinations. It is not uncommon for professions to report pass rates of well below 50% of candidates who entered the examinations – frequently resulting in negative media coverage and questions about the fairness of the process of entry into the profession.

• According to news reports, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica) reported pass rates of 57% and 43% in 2020 and 2021 in the examination giving entry to the CA(SA) designation.
• Numbers supplied by the Financial Planning Institute of Southern Africa (FPI) reveal an average pass rate of 43% over the last ten years in the Professional Competency Examination, leading to the designation of Certified Financial Planner^®.
• The same trends were present in the years from 2011 to 2017 when the Fiduciary Institute of Southern Africa (Fisa) offered a professional competency examination giving access to the designation of Fiduciary Practitioner of South Africa^® (FPSA).
• Technical training (as opposed to academic education) has been neglected for decades. According to the 2021 National Plumbing Survey by the Institute of Plumbing SA (IOPSA), the average age of qualified plumbers in South Africa is estimated to be at least 55 years. There is a real risk that South Africa could run out of qualified plumbers in the near future.

Although the world has changed and is changing rapidly, certain basic human needs stay the same or change less rapidly. Even so, rapid advances in knowledge and technology may rapidly change the solutions to the challenges of satisfying these needs for a growing population.

The information age has also brought information overload and many distractions, leading to a decrease in attention span. Some publications estimate the average attention span of teenagers today at 65 seconds.

If South Africa could start from scratch, how can the trends identified above be reversed?

1. There needs to be a debunking of the myth that university education is the only acceptable and worthy form of tertiary education. South Africa desperately needs trained plumbers, electricians and many more tradespeople. The thinking and talking around tertiary education needs to change to give appropriate recognition to these trades and create sufficient opportunities for technical education and apprenticeships.
2. Career guidance to learners in South African schools must be prioritised and vastly improved. Such guidance must also be properly structured to [those with] open minds to the opportunities and possibilities, without placing learners in little boxes which may hold them back and stereotype them. South Africa needs skilled people. We cannot afford wasting potential.
3. Numeracy and literacy levels in primary schools in South Africa are notoriously low and must be the focus of any attempt to improve primary education. We should do whatever is necessary here. We cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater because of a desire for political correctness. Secondary schools cannot build on the marshy soil of insufficient numeracy and literacy skills, and tertiary education is not the place to rectify this.
4. The school system has to be transformed to equip learners to study and think, not to be trained to pass an examination. While the acquiring of basis knowledge is important, it cannot be the sole purpose of a school. Problem-solving, lateral thinking, analysing information, integrating knowledge and the application of knowledge are crucial skills which have to be mastered, even at a very basic level, as early as possible.
5. In a rapidly changing world we cannot only train for specific professions or jobs at the tertiary level. We have to produce individuals with a wide frame of reference and the critical skills and abilities to adapt to rapid change. One of these is embracing a culture of life-long learning. However, a culture of life-long learning is not fostered by enforced courses and webinars for the sake of being able to tick a box. The value of reading and self-study has to be emphasised and inculcated throughout formal education in all three phases.
6. When it comes to the professions, more opportunities for on-the-job training have to be created. My own experience has shown that many candidates for professional entry examinations lack skills and knowledge which can best be acquired while working in the field. It is essential that experience requirements are also included and increased before professional competency examinations can be entered. Internships are crucial and cannot be paid lip service without any real commitment to knowledge transfer.

The points above may be easier said than done, but South Africa has to focus and start somewhere if we want to unlock the human potential of our population.

If we succeed, we all win.