Today our guest is Professor Chika Sehoole, Dean of the Faculty of Education at UP.

• The 2021 matric pass rate stands at 76.4 % with the second cohort to write the November National Senior Certificate  examinations during the Covid-19 pandemic.
• According to Umalusi, the matric class of 2021 was disrupted in their schooling for two years and lost more than 50% of their Grade 11 year due to the pandemic.
• In 2013 a CDE report said South Africa has the worst education system of all middle-income countries that participate in cross-national assessments of educational achievement and it also performed worse than many low-income African countries
• More research claimed South Africa has a vicious schooling cycle where initial teacher education is highly variable but generally insufficient.
• Research on newly qualified teachers indicates that students enter their studies with very poor skills, and leave with little more.
• Consequently, their pupils do very poorly and teaching is perceived as a low-status career.