Hayibo.com - Primary school pupils "only need to know A, N, C and X"

Primary school pupils "only need to know A, N, C and X"

PRETORIA. The ANC has hit back at a new study slating the quality of education being received by South African primary school pupils, saying that they are being taught everything they need to know. "All that our kids need to know are the letters A, N, and C," said a spokesman. "And the letter X, which they will one day put next to the little picture of Msholozi."

According to a study released this week, hundreds of thousands of South African children are functionally illiterate and have no basic mathematics skills, mainly because their teachers are functionally illiterate and have no basic mathematics skills.

However, this morning education spokesman Fodder Nzimande said that it was "wildly unfair" to say that South African children were being disadvantaged by the school system.

"By the time they leave school in Grade 11, ready to swell the ranks of our revolutionary youth voters, they know all they will ever need to know," he said.

"Some might argue that they need to know all the letters of the alphabet, but as we have clearly proven at the polls, all they need to know are the letters A, N, C and X."

He added that teaching children the letter E was dangerous, as it might lead to them figuring out how to spell "EX-ANC".

Nzimande also dismissed the report's gloomy view of mathematics teaching, saying that teachers across the country were enjoying working through story sums with their classes.

"The new SADTU-enforced curriculum is full of wonderful story sums that make maths real to our kids," he said.

"For example: 'A Somali shopkeeper sells cans of Coke for R5, which is R2.50 less than what they cost at the South African-owned spaza shop next door. Should the Somali shopkeeper be a) beaten to death b) burnt to death c) beaten to death and then burnt?'

"And likewise: 'A Deputy Minister is sentenced to 15 years in prison for fraud. Calculate how many months he will actually spend in prison (Hint: keep your answers within a range of 0 to 6 months).'"

He said that that the geography curriculum was currently being revised, but that once it was settled, new and exciting ways of teaching the subject would be revealed.

"We're still just deciding who qualifies as African," explained Nzimande. "I mean, everyone knows Africa extends as far north as Nigeria, but is Mauritania part of Africa? Because north of Nigeria you really just have a large sandy patch full of Arabs. And Arabs aren't Africans."

However, he said, a SADTU think-tank had already "nailed down the geography north of the Mediterranean".

"Apparently there's a continent up in the north known only as 'Racistia'," he said. "Everything north of Mauritania is racist. Except for one small enclave called Manchester United, which is very wonderful."