There are two kinds of statistics: the kind you look up and the kind you make up,” so said Rex Stout. For their part, Mark Twain and Milton Friedman stated that “facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable” and that “statistics do not speak for themselves” respectively.

More quotations: “Statistics can be made to prove anything, even the truth” (anonymous); “I can prove anything by statistics except the truth” (George Canning); and “I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself” (Winston Churchill).

The most telling is that of Dilbert, the fictional character of the business comic strip, while making a presentation on a whiteboard to his colleagues: “I did not have any accurate numbers, so I just made up this one. Studies have shown that the accurate numbers are not any more useful than the ones you make up.” A colleague questions: “How many studies showed that?” Dilbert’s answer: “Eighty-seven.”

This brings us to educatum, Latin for “the act of teaching or training”, or educare, another Latin word, which means to bring up or to raise. Depending on your preference, both these words gave rise to the English word ‘education’.

According to its website, the Department of Basic Education states that it “is mandated to monitor the standards of education provision, delivery and performance across South Africa, annually or at other specified intervals, to assess compliance with provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996 and national education policy”. With respect to its mandate to develop skills for a changing world, it states: “To prepare learners for jobs in a changing and increasingly digitalised world; over the medium term, the department planned to enhance the curriculum by introducing new technical subjects.” But just how prepared are South African learners for jobs? That is if they can find one – the country’s unemployment rate stands at 46.6%.

In 2021, the matric pass rate was 76.4%, a 0.2 percentage point increase on the previous year. At the official release of the results, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said: “For the past ten years, the National Senior Certificate (NSC) pass rates have consistently been going up from 60% in 2009 to above 70% in recent years.”

But what constitutes a pass? To gain an NSC, a learner needs to pass four subjects with 30%, and three with 40%. Expressed differently, a learner needs to attain an average of 34.29%. This means not knowing 65.71% of the subject matters constitutes a pass. Attaining an average of 41.43% – with a minimum of 50% in four subjects – qualifies a learner for university admission, while an average of 35.71%, with a minimum of 40% in four subjects is enough to be admitted on to a diploma programme.

An article published on www.businesstech.co.za on January 8 stated: “The department said that it is aware of arguments that raising this threshold to 50% would improve the education system; however, it said that this change would not be made, as the system aims to encourage ‘different levels of achievement’. Hence, it needs to be understood that candidates scoring 30% in most of their subjects will not qualify for admission to a higher education institution. However, not all learners are expected to qualify for higher education admission.”

The Democratic Alliance contends that the ‘real’ matric pass rate in 2021 was 51.4%, if one takes into account the high dropout rate of 32.7% from Grade 10 to 12.

It is said of mediocrity, originating from the Latin word mediocris: “Set the bar low enough and everyone is exceptional.” If mediocrity is the goal, take heed of the words of Michael Scott, the fictional manager of The Office, “The only time I set the bar low is for limbo.”