Schools that don't add up

16 July 2015 - 02:11 By Poppy Louw

A quarter of state high schools do not offer mathematics in grades 10, 11 or 12. The DA said yesterday that a recent parliamentary reply had revealed not all schools offered maths in the further education and training (FET) phase.Annette Lovemore, the party's basic education spokesman, wrote to minister Angie Motshekga yesterday asking her to explain why a quarter of state high schools "are allowed to deny learners a full matric maths education on her watch, and how this will be urgently rectified"."Every one of the top skills listed in the 100 (national) scarce skills list requires learners to have done mathematics. Not offering the subject is denying them the opportunity to pursue any of these careers, and denying the country the opportunity to develop the skills that it needs," Lovemore said.The non-availability of qualified, competent maths teachers in the FET phase, the non-existence of posts, the exclusion of maths at special schools and not having enough pupils to appoint a teacher, are among the reasons given by the department for schools not offering maths.The Western Cape offers maths at more than 90% of its schools, whereas Gauteng, Limpopo, North West and the Free State offer maths at more than 80% of schools.Mpumalanga has the fewest schools (43.7%) offering maths.Wits University vice chancellor Adam Habib called the situation a tragedy, saying South Africa needed quality maths teachers.He said policy-makers needed to do whatever was necessary to remedy the situation, including hiring foreign teachers in the interim."It is crazy that we are wasting generations of young talent because there are not enough teachers. We should have the courage to import these teachers."I would like to see this kind of political pragmatism on these kinds of issues emerge among our country's policy-makers."Last year's matric maths pass rate was 53.5%, down from 59.1% in 2013.The head of the Centre for Education Practice Research at the University of Johannesburg, Elizabeth Henning, said the lack of maths education was worrying and she felt sympathy for the principals who gave up on offering the subject."We need teachers to fill the void in the schools ... and it's hard to become a maths teacher if you don't have a certain level of knowledge."Henning said the lack of reasonable foundations in maths teaching in primary schools further reduced the number of prospective maths teachers...

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