Dr Sonja van Putten, a senior lecturer in the Department of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education in the Faculty of Education at UP, is conducting research on mathematics as a career choice and Professional Mathematics Teacher Identity. She blames a shortage of specialist mathematics teachers and inadequate teaching for South Africa’s low global ranking. Dr van Putten also said that although 36 951 vacant teaching posts have been filled in previous years, 34 383 posts remain unfilled, which leads to many schools not being able to offer mathematics in the Further Education and Training phase. She also said, “Education, particularly mathematics education, must once again become a sought-after career, instead of a fallback when other disciplines reject the aspirant student. These statistics led us to ask why South Africa’s education system is ranked so poorly. Most of the blame falls upon teaching quality, poor and inefficiently used resources, and high dropout rates.”
A study by the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality found that almost 60% of mathematics teachers from grades one to six failed to pass tests set at the grade level they were teaching. “Education is only as good as your teachers, and our universities are failing to produce quality teachers, particularly in maths and science. Teachers also have patchy content knowledge. We go to schools and find that teachers are only teaching the parts of the curriculum that they are comfortable with,” says Ariellah Rosenberg, head of educator empowerment at ORT SA, a branch of the global non-profit organisation Obchestvo Remeslenogo Truda (ORT): Association for the Promotion of Skilled Trades, that originated from Russia and provides teacher training and skills development.
Education researcher Nic Spaull says, “If we look at when we started school 12 years ago, there were 1.1 million children in grade one, but when you look at the 2014 matrics, there were only 550 000 students. Where did the half a million students go?” A survey conducted by Stats SA from January to December 2014 found that the top three reasons students drop out of school are because they have no money for school fees (23.5%), cannot perform academically at school (17.7%), and have too many family commitments (11.6%).
Textbook delivery has also been a major problem in recent years, with Limpopo the province worst hit. Over 100 schools did not receive textbooks last year. Many of them were rural schools that had not received textbooks in the years before despite renewed promises. A court case was opened against the government stating that the rights of the pupils had been violated.
The most important problems faced by the children who did attend school were found to be high fees and a lack of textbooks. These were closely followed by overfilled classes and poor
facilities.
Despite a critical need for improvement, there is hope for South Africa. The matric pass rate has improved from an estimated 40% in the late 1990s to 70.7% in 2015. However, this is a drop from the 75.8% pass rate seen in 2014 and is blamed on so-called “progressed learners” who had failed grade 11 twice but were allowed into grade 12 despite not meeting the criteria. Without the addition of their marks, the pass rate would have been 74%. Stringent marking and higher quality exams also contributed to the lowered pass rate. Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced that the number of learners who passed mathematics has increased from 120 523 in 2014 to 129 481 in 2015, and those who passed physical science increased from 103 348 in 2014 to 113 121 in 2015. She also said there were 3 711 more distinctions in 2015.
Education is an extremely important pillar in the development of South Africa, and has been labelled by experts as the tool to help break the cycle of poverty and underdevelopment which far too many South Africans are still trapped in.
Image: Blue Palm UP
