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Alarm bells for ICT skills pool

Nicola Mawson
By Nicola Mawson
Johannesburg, 10 Jan 2014
SA's education system must move beyond chalk and talk, says ICT veteran Adrian Schofield.
SA's education system must move beyond chalk and talk, says ICT veteran Adrian Schofield.

A look behind the Department of Basic Education's glowing pass rates for the National Senior Certificate (NSC), and key ICT building-block subjects - mathematics and science - shows the country has little to crow about.

Instead, the lower number of students taking the key subjects - and the low number who pass with more than 40% - raises alarm bells over the future skills pool for the sector. This, in turn, is causing concern over the industry's ability to develop its own technology and reduce the reliance on imports.

In 2013, 72.8% of those who wrote the NSC passed - an increase of 61 950 passes compared to last year, said basic education minister Angie Motshekga. Mathematics and science passes also improved.

This week, Motshekga said mathematics pass rates were improving, thanks to interventions in the schooling system. She noted the "2011 Trends in Mathematics and Science Studies" benchmark showed improvements in mathematics and science competences of grade nine learners, when compared to grade nine learners tested in 2002.

Digging deeper

However, the department's technical report shows that although 59.1% (142 666) of those who wrote mathematics passed, this figure drops to 40.5%, or 97 790, when looking at passes with more than 40%.

In addition, 67.4% (124 206) passed science with 30%, a figure that drops to 42.7%, or 78 677, when looking at passes at 40% and above.

In addition, the number of students enrolling for mathematics and physical science has been declining. In 2009, 296 164 students signed up for mathematics, a figure that peaked at 299 371, before falling to 245 663 last year, which was admittedly an improvement on the number who enrolled in 2012.

Physical science students have also been declining, moving from 224 902 in 2009 to 187 170 last year, a figure that has been flat for the past three years.

Graeme Bloch, visiting adjunct professor at University of Witwatersrand Public and Development Management School, says there are not enough children doing mathematics and science, and they are not doing well enough at those subjects.

Going backwards

ICT veteran Adrian Schofield says, as a result of the low requirement to pass and declining number of students, the number of students who will go on to become a pool of skills from which the ICT sector can draw, is diminishing.

As long as the country glorifies the pass rate, it is pushing everything else under the carpet, says Schofield.

He also notes that fewer than 10 000 students are writing mathematics probability and data handling each year, which is a fraction of the number of students (1.2 million) who started grade 0 to become the class of 2013.

Mike McDougall, of the Actuarial Society of SA, explains in a blog that this optional paper - also called mathematics three - is important, because it develops unstructured problem-solving skills, which are among the most important skills needed in engineering, actuarial science and natural sciences.

"Maths is a universal problem-solving language that can be applied in many spheres of everyday life. Maths education is, therefore, critical in fostering logical thinking and numeracy," writes McDougall.

Writing in September, McDougall said the "low pass rate, the falling percentage of learners taking maths, and the poor quality of SA's maths education, is worrying". "The World Economic Forum last year ranked SA at the bottom on the quality of maths and science, in a survey of 62 countries."

McDougall says many learners believe that mathematics is only needed to study careers in fields such as actuarial science, accounting, medicine or engineering. However, he says the subject trains the brain in logical reasoning and flexible thinking.

Missing in action

Schofield says the low number of those who pass with more than 40% leads to a gap in knowledge when the students either move into industry or into higher education. He says this means going back to basics to educate those students. "We are not producing work-ready school leavers."

As a result, says Schofield, the sector will be worse off in 10 years, will become less competitive, and will increasingly rely on imported skills and technology. He adds this will not help the country trim the outflow of money being spent on external skills and ICT.

Schofield says fixing the system needs to start at the youngest possible age, because young people need to understand the basic logic of technology through an understanding of mathematics and science.

Bloch says there is not a large enough base of students studying mathematics, a situation that needs to be challenged at foundation level. He says a plan is required, and there are solutions, but this will not be solved overnight.

Without a plan, the situation will be bleak in 10 years' time, says Bloch. He says weaknesses must be acknowledged.

Teachers need to be equipped with knowledge so learners have the space to experiment and play with technology in order to learn, says Schofield.

An October report into the use of technology at schools found this component has been left lagging, and is not used as an education tool. The task team report, into the implementation of government's 2001 mathematics, science and technology (MST) strategy, also found teachers are ill-equipped to provide technology-related training; that a dearth of funding hampers access to technology; and that there are not enough resources to ensure quality MST education.

Schofield says education generally has not moved beyond "chalk and talk" to how things work in 2014, which requires a shift in the teaching culture and methodology to a live and dynamic environment.

Subject enrolments 2009-2013

Entered 2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Math lit

284 174

288 370

281 613

297 074

330 789

Math

296 164

270 598

299 371

230 194

245 663

Science

224 902

210 168

184 052

182 083

187 170