I am increasingly convinced that the education system in our fair land is not about up-skilling people. This rather depressing observation has come about due to my exposure to both learners still at school and also to those that have recently left school and are in the work environment. Some confusion obviously exists in our Marxist brothers, that the "pass one, pass them all" system will deliver the necessary skills to take our economy forward. Boy, have I got news for you guys. The application of this system, where you have never failed but are just "not yet competent", has resulted in a generation that believe that it is easy to get an academic qualification. Anyone who has sweated blood trying to obtain good marks for an exam will know that pursuing knowledge is an exclusive past time and is not one that one approaches without trepidation. Allied to this is the fact that this pursuit is not for the masses. Only a small percentage have all the factors aligned  to enable them to get a tertiary education and even so,there is a high drop out rate at this level.
Currently our success rate at University is 5%. Wasted resources, misallocation of government funding and a lack of understanding as to what it  takes to increase this pass rate are characteristics of the failed attempts of Government.
I do not hold out much hope that we can get the pass rate up without a major rethink and a change in the allocation of resources. Foundation skills are a good place to start. My attempts to help those in the system above Grade 10 have not been very successful.
Pre--primary and primary school interventions. Forget about lowering the matric standard any further as already the Universities have had to institute their own exams to determine the level of the student.