With matric exams done and dusted, we can look forward to stories of exceptionalism hitting our inboxes soon. Take for example, twins Divano and Diego Blankenberg, raised by a single mother in Atlantis in the Western Cape, who matriculated at the end of 2021 with nine distinctions between them, making them the first members of their family ever to attend university.
Without taking away from this extraordinary achievement, these good news stories mask a bleaker picture of a vastly unequal schooling system where more than 25% of learners drop out of school before they even reach matric.
The truth is, right now our schools don’t necessarily teach the right stuff. And they don’t teach it well enough; even the best teachers are constrained by a lack of resources and top-down…