South Africa Education

South Africa has fallen behind in education in the worlds view. The continent Africa in

general has never been the best with education and many do not go past a certain grade before

dropping out. South Africa has been working very hard to change the number of kids in school to

foster global citizenship and improve the overall quality of learning that the child would be

receiving. The UN global initiative of education have been working hard for countries like South

Africa to succeed in education. The three main priorities for each country is to put every child in

school, improve the quality of learning and foster global citizenship. Globalization is a huge

reason why South Africa may not be thriving in these areas. South Africa does not get the same

resources like a country like the United States. With saying saying that we have things like the

UN global initiative of education to get countries rolling on these things. We need to have

priorities in our country and one of them needs to be education.

The amount of people that were in school compared to 20 years ago in South Africa have

gone up immensely. The recent statistics of South Africa show that there were about 26,000

ordinary schools in South Africa but only about 12 million students. The problem that South

Africa has been having is the amount of students to school to teachers ratio. The amount of

students is overwhelmingly higher to the teachers. The teachers do not know what to do since

there are so many students in one classroom. A lot of students fall behind and some have to start

making money quick to provide for the family so they start to drop out. On the website

Education Statistics, it says that, The national average LER in ordinary schools in the country

was 29.4:1, ranging from 27.2:1 in the Free State to 31. 5:1 in the Northern Cape. (Education

Statistics). South Africa has changed a lot though for the better. In 1952 there was a system

passed called the Apartheid system which created inequality in education for African Americans.
Many policies have changed since then and South Africa has tried to adopt the GEI rules by

forcing the kids a specific amount of years they have to be enrolled in school. Students now have

to be in school for at least nine years before being able to drop off. Although South Africa

is trying to fix the drop out rate it is still said by the website BusinessTech

that, The report cited the Department of Basic Educations 2014 country

progress report, which showed that although 86% of 16-to 18-year-olds are in

school, only 5% complete grade 12 by age 18, the expected age of

completion.(BusinessTech), so although it is shown that they have a lot of

students enrolled from 16-18 most of them wont get to the point of

graduating which could be from the amount of learning they are receiving

and whether what is being taught is good enough.

This graph shows the

amount of people passing or failing the Quintile which is a South Africa test

that is done everywhere in the country.

Another factor in the UN global imitative of education is how well the

students are being taught. The teachers in South Africa are not getting

proper enough of training to teach the amount of students they have in a

class. The quality of learning is not acceptable in South Africa and the
country needs to follow certain guidelines to get there. South Africa is

especially bad in the subjects like math, science, and reading. They are

ranked 144/144 in terms of the quality of math/science education.

Researchers believe the students literacy sis o bad because they do not get

he proper education at home from when they were child and were very

delayed when starting school. The website Education also informs us that It

discovered that 9 from 10 African students did not obtain one of the most

fundamental standards in reading literacy examinations. (Education). This is

poor quality of education and South Africa needs to follow the terms of the

GIE and really focus on the quality of the education they are teaching the

students.

In this graph you can see

where South Africa falls on the quality of education. Which they fall 144/144.

South Africa does a great job at fostering global citizenship. The

country really goes out of its way to teach the students about real life

problems and have them understand other peoples ideas. Schools in South

Africa have them be open and accept other peoples opinions and traditions.
 Overall South Africa is showing promise on fixing their education. The

UN global initiative of education is making a change for this country and

hopefully they will start to get even more on board with the three dominant

things they need to change. This all takes time and they are improving.

Resources:

Comments, S. W. (n.d.). This graph shows just how bad South Africa is

at education. Retrieved April 04, 2017, from

https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/89446/this-graph-shows-just-

how-bad-south-africa-is-at-education/

Quality of Education in South Africa. (n.d.). Retrieved April 04, 2017,

from http://education.co.za/the-importance-of-education-education-in-south-

africa-quality-of-education-in-south-africa

Africa, S. (n.d.). Educating global citizens to make a real difference.

Retrieved April 04, 2017, from http://www.afs.org.za/education/#afs-nav-our-

commitment