Five years ago, I wrote an article on “The Demise of the South African Education System”. It was based on the reports “Matric” results. For those of you in other countries, it simply refers to the academic results of students graduating from high school. Since the birth of the so-called “democratic South Africa”, the Matric results have caused much controversy and discussion. Just after 1994, the country saw the worst possible results and in a few short years following that there was a miraculous rise in the pass rate.

This prompted me to look at the figures of Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) to look at comparative figures and it was clear that while our “internal” pass rates soared, the external comparison showed the exact opposite. South African students were doing worse than ever, in the international comparison (South Africa finishing last in both Mathematics and Science). From this it was clear that the South African education standards were dropping, but even worse, the National Department Appeared to be extremely proud of their accomplishments.

In 2012, the results showed a further “improvement” in terms of pass rate, with the Department of Education again extremely proud of their accomplishment, yet South Africa does not even form part of the “TIMSS” study. We however did have reactions from leaders of Academic institutions, with Professor Jansen from the University of the Orange Free State saying that he was ashamed of South Africa and saying it “is a disgrace that you can pass matric, with a mark of 30%”. I believe anyone can agree that it is a disgrace when you say that a figure of 30% is good enough for anything. In life, whatever you do, you have to achieve 100% to be successful at any task and a basis of 30% leaves a shortfall of more than half, which basically means you have no basis at all.

Recently however, someone supplied me a link to the following documentary: AGENDA: Grinding America down. As with all documentaries of this nature, there is a conspiracy theory element. And while all of it may not be true, there are some truths in between the various over exaggerations. In this documentary, much is made of the American Education System and manner in which they are also dropping their standards, not specifically in real terms, but in comparison to the rest of the world. One of the aspects that stand out, is however the creation of Lenin’s “useful idiots”. In the context of education, this fits in perfectly with the South African Political System.

As we don’t have strong leaders in South Africa, this is one of the ideal ways in which to control the masses. The current government and leadership will never be able to control and rule over the masses, if the masses were placed in a position to think for themselves. They therefore have to suppress the development of thought and the “rise of the intelligentsia”. The current government needs a huge “lower class” to stay in power and it is therefore in their own interest to lower the standard of education or to delay its development as much as possible. The South African leadership need to create the useful idiots, in order to guarantee support for their own greed.

However, this line of thought by the “leaders” are flawed, as proven by the fall of Eastern European communism, as in the end, human nature will lead the “new oppressed” to claim their own freedom. Freedom from the slavery of oppression of thought and freedom from the sub-standard education. The biggest problem however is that this will have to happen over a long period, as the masses need to develop a collective need and hunger for knowledge and thought. We do know it will happen at some stage, but we are still far from that point, if the history of Eastern Europe repeats itself here. That would mean that we still have a long way to go down, before we will rise again.

We however, also have the opportunity to accelerate the process. We as South Africans need to contribute to the education of those around us and to raise awareness. We need to empower others through education and the sharing knowledge.

What we do not need, is an “idiocracy”.