Prof Jonathan Jansen, the very enterprising Vice Chancellor of the University of the Free State, and a colleague Molly Black early last year visited South African schools that work, despite some of the most adverse circumstances. They subsequently wrote up their experience in an excellent little book on “How to fix our schools – lessons from schools that work”.

The schools work because they employ strategies such as firm routines and structures, dedicated teachers, high expectations from their students, they involve parents in the life of the school, and the school principals lead the way. Despite large classes and a lack of suitable buildings, most of these schools achieve 100% passes.

(By the way, the last Sunday Times reported a small school in rural Kwazulu-Natal which has gone from a 0% matric pass in 2013 to a 95.5% in 2014!)

I was reminded of this excellent little book when reading about the latest educational fiasco: cheating and copying by matric students. These were not individual cheaters, these were groups of students, sometimes as large as 40 in collusion with invigilators, some say actual teachers, who dictated the answers. To add insult to injury, the answers were often incorrect!

What can one say about our education system, if adults who should know better, have so little appreciation of the value of education and so little respect for the future of their students, not just as an educated workforce, but also as responsible citizens?

Are we learning from other countries and their experiences based on solid research? Or are we just trying to reinvent the wheel?

I recently watched an interview with Gary Player. He mentioned having met many world leaders in the course of his illustrious career, but regrets not having met one of the men he admires most, former Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kwan Yew.

Gary is right. This man took a backward, illiterate country, decimated by World War II, and transformed it into what it is today – one of the most advanced in education, technology and economics. From the start, improvement in education was seen to be a major strategy in accomplishing Singapore’s goals. They achieved this in three phases.

First they focused on achieving universal literacy and numeracy. The second phase was dedicated to reaching a quality of standard comparable to the best in the world. This was accomplished by streaming students at the end of the fourth grade based on their performance in their natural language “so that teachers could pitch instructions to the levels of the students.”

Finally, they acknowledged that a healthy economy requires not just a highly educated and skilled workforce, but also a workforce with the habits of mind, values, attitudes and skills needed to develop leading-edge products and sciences. They developed a curriculum of instruction that encourages creativity and innovation. To this end they are supported by world-class educational and research institutes such as the Nanyang University of Technology.

Furthermore, in Singapore teacher training and the emphasis on the quality of teachers is a priority, as it is in Finland, another country which has achieved enormous gains in the last 40 years, to the point where the Finns top the PISA global assessments in Literacy, Science and Mathematics.

In these countries, the primary school teacher is regarded as a crucial agent in the education of the child. High qualifications are required of primary teachers, such as a Masters Degree. Furthermore, teachers receive the respect and the salary granted to doctors and engineers. This is certainly one area where our education system fails. Although we have some excellent primary and secondary school teachers, our teachers are generally underpaid compared to other professions. No wonder that going into commerce is more financially attractive. Yet research points to the effect of teachers in any educational system to be the most powerful variable in student achievement.

I’ve often wondered if it would not be possible to take groups of primary school teachers out of the system for one year and to retrain them in high-powered educational institutions such as universities. These teachers could be further mentored by experienced and successful teachers. Newly qualified teachers could be assigned to replace these teachers as part of their community service, similar to that required of members of the health profession. It might be adding to our already enormous cost, but this is negligible in terms of the overall benefits to our country and to the future of our people.

We know that 50% of grade 1 students drop out by the time they should be writing Matric. Given the below 50% passes in Literacy and Mathematics reported by the ANA (Annual National Assessment) results, it is no wonder that students drop out. By grade 4 only 37.3% of students have passed Mathematics and by grade 9, only 10.8%. Less than 50% have passed the Home Language tests by grade 9. Is it any surprise that students either leave the system or do poorly in the Matric examinations? A fully literate and numerate workforce should be our first priority and with properly prepared teachers our youth can be instilled with the habits of mind, values and attitudes so essential to learning. In this respect an organisation like Thinking Schools South Africa (TSSA) can help advance us to the level where we can begin to be taken seriously in the educational world-order.

Written by Dr Anita Worrall, director of PRO-ED multidisciplinary centre and school and co-founder of The Thinking Schools Movement in South Africa