There was much celebration nationwide when the results of the 2013 Grade 12 school exam – still commonly referred to as matric – showed a 4% improvement over the 2012 results.

The overall pass rate came out at 78%. Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga was extremely pleased and there were messages of congratulation all round.

I am happy to add my congratulations too.

The Minister then urged the class of 2014 to strive to better these results. Many people enthusiastically called for another 4% improvement on the matric results for 2014. There was universal support for such a target.

But now I want to issue a word of caution. Think about it – if we get a 4% yearly improvement for the next five years, the matric pass rate will reach 100%.

Imagine what it would look like if there was a nationwide 100% pass rate for matric. All credibility for the exam would fall away. So, one should be very careful about this unbridled enthusiasm for improving the pass rate.

For a few years now, I have said that it is very easy to obtain a 100% pass rate in only one year. Dead easy. All you have to do is fail 50% of the Grade 11 learners this year and next year you should get a 100% matric pass rate. So there is an increased incentive to fail Grade 11 learners. In fact, fail the Grade 10 and Grade 9 learners, and so on.

This is not as silly as it may sound. Let us go back to Grades 7 and 8. Children should not be passing Grade 7 and getting into high school if they are not adequately equipped at that stage. If, out of the kindness of one’s heart, Grade 7 learners who are not capable are passed, then all you do is set them up for failure later when the emotional impact will be much greater.

So, what should the matric pass rate be? Well, I think it should be about 80%. I think that 90% is probably too high. Therefore, the pass rate achieved in 2013 is just about at the correct figure.

We have to ask: What is really important?

One of the dumbest comments I saw in the newspapers was one which was repeated quite often by people who obviously did not think very deeply, if at all. They would point out that fewer than half of all the children who started in Grade 1 had ended up passing matric.

They would then passionately appeal for something to be done about this. Do these people really believe that a nation will have a 100% pass rate of all citizens at matric? If this were to happen, the value of matric would drop so low that a new qualification would have to be developed to use as another benchmark.

In the US, a little more than 50% of learners “pass matric” and that is considered normal.

So, what is education all about? What is education, actually? To my mind, education is a process which enables the student to earn a living at some point and so become financially independent. It is pointless giving someone a minimal pass at matric in subjects like biblical studies and history, only to find that they cannot be employed and end up drawing State unemployment benefits.

It is much better for someone to leave school with a Grade 7 certificate and go on to become a really good diesel mechanic. The diesel mechanic will earn much more than the person with matric biblical studies.

The system must be designed to allow people to honourably leave school with a Grade 7 certificate and then enter an apprenticeship. This will probably require a change to the child labour legislation and to the minimum wage legislation. I believe that it is good and desirable to allow a 14- or 15-year-old “to get a job” as an opportunity, which would be the equivalent of completing high school.

I consider a qualified diesel mechanic to be very educated, even if the person never passed matric. The same applies to many valuable trades. What is the most fundamental thing that should be taught in school?

The answer is that learners should be taught to think. They should to be taught to confront alternatives and to make a good choice. A head full of data is no use without the ability to choose the best path.