In 2000, this newspaper grabbed attention with a stinging line “SA learners are the dunces of Africa”. That headline lodged in my mind, not because our children are slow, but because the system around them is.
Three decades of work in schools taught me a simple truth: teaching without learning is a waste of time — teaching must be the facilitation of learning. That means moving beyond answer-hunting to understanding, beyond tricks to meaning. The department of basic education (DBE) spent five years piloting exactly that shift, from procedural to conceptual teaching, because when children know why maths works, they remember how it works.
Here’s a test I use with adults: Is 3×4 the same as 4×3? Most say yes, because both equal 12. But three baskets of four apples are not the same as four baskets of three apples, the picture changes, even if the product doesn’t. That insight matters more than chanting tables; it’s the difference between procedures and ideas. Our classrooms overvalue the former and underuse the latter.
So, what actually works? Two big, evidence-shaped levers parents can recognise in their child’s workbooks:
1. Teach with objects and pictures first, symbols last. Bruner’s CPA sequence, Concrete → Pictorial → Abstract, lets learners see a concept, draw it, then write it. CPA is not a gimmick; it’s in our national Mathematics Teaching and Learning Framework. The Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) tells teachers what to teach; the framework shows how to teach, yet many front-line educators still haven’t met it. Parents can ask: “Can you show me the drawing that comes before the sum?”
2. Master small skills daily, not in panic just before exams. Our Skills Mastery Approach uses short “five-a-day” check-ins to diagnose learning gaps and build fluency, wrapped in a steady diet of problem-solving, sometimes routine, sometimes non-routine, so children choose strategies, not just mimic them.
CAPS expects about 170 teaching days, but timetables and the calendar routinely erase a month of that—then we try to fit a 170-day curriculum into 140 days. Add seven periods a day with no built-in transition time and you can lose 40 minutes daily. Do the maths: that’s hours per week, weeks per term, months per year gone, before a child lifts a pencil.
If the “how” is fixable, why the crisis? Partly, we don’t protect learning time. CAPS expects about 170 teaching days, but timetables and the calendar routinely erase a month of that — then we try to fit a 170-day curriculum into 140 days. Add seven periods a day with no built-in transition time and you can lose 40 minutes daily. Do the maths: that’s hours per week, weeks per term, months per year gone, before a child lifts a pencil.
This is not on teachers alone; it’s a system management problem that parents and principals can fix together: ring-fence teaching time, pad transitions, publish a “lost-minutes” dashboard at SGB meetings.
Another uncomfortable fact: too many schools don’t even offer pure maths any more. That’s not children failing maths; that’s maths failing children. We can reverse it by front-loading grades 8 and 9, the gateway years when subject choices harden. If I controlled the purse, I’d shift 50% of the money we spend on grade 12 exams into these grades: retrain teachers, make maths relevant, and fix assessment before it breaks futures. Parents should insist their schools invest in grades 6 to 9, because that’s where confidence and pathways are won or lost.
What should retraining look like? Not another slide show. Coach teachers in-class to run CPA faithfully; teach the language of maths (words, symbols, gestures) as part of meaning; and reset attitudes with small wins that convert “I can’t” into “I did”. Your child should come home with:
(a) a drawing or model for new ideas;
(b) clear words for those ideas in English and home language where helpful; and
(c) a short, mixed-level problem to talk through at the kitchen table.
Let’s be frank: maths is not hard; our habits are. We still reward answer-getting over sense-making. We squeeze lessons, a one size fits all lessons — no differentiation, then wonder why nothing sticks. We treat problem-solving as a Friday “extra” instead of the main course. All of this is fixable — quickly — if we align time, training and tools around concepts first, procedures next, practice always. That’s what our Skills Mastery and CPA combo was built to do, and it’s why I keep saying our “crisis” has simple, local fixes.
Here’s a parent’s checklist you can use this week:
Ask for the picture. “Before you show me the answer, show me the drawing or model.”
Ask for the words. “What does this word mean in maths? Can you say it in your home language and in English?”
Ask for a choice. “Are there two different ways to solve this? Which do you prefer, and why?”
Watch the clock. “How much real teaching time did you have today? Where did minutes leak?”
Look for five-a-day. “What five quick checks did you do this week? What did they show?”
If we do only three things: protect time, teach with CPA and practise conceptual skills daily inside rich problems, we will see more children choose and succeed in pure maths. I’ve watched learners turn in a term when these basics land. The monster in the room isn’t maths; it’s a set of fixable habits. Let’s fix them.
* Dr Corvell Cranfield is CEO of School Turnaround Foundation and director of Education without Borders. He is also mathematics technical adviser for the National Education Collaboration Trust.
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