Teachers fail simple maths, English tests
Timetable disruptions hamper teaching of new curriculum
● Most teachers who took part in a sample survey on the national school curriculum were unable to identify the main idea in a paragraph, or do a simple maths calculation.
The results were from elementary tests in English first additional language and maths. The tests were part of a study by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation to assess the teaching of the revised National Curriculum Statements, or CAPS, syllabus that was launched in 2012.
The evaluation involved 24 of the poorest schools (12 primary and 12 high schools) in the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga.
Thirty-five high school teachers and 22 primary school teachers were interviewed and observed in class during 96 lessons.
Only five of 22 primary school teachers were able to identify the main idea in a simple paragraph and only six were able to do a simple calculation in maths.
Examples of the maths questions were multiplying 53.03 by 100 and expressing 0.4 as a fraction.
Teachers scored as low as 10% for English first additional language and 5% for maths. Only five of the 22 Grade 2 teachers scored 60% in English and just three in maths.
On average, the teachers scored 4.4 out of 10 in describing a family member in four to six sentences.
“This item was most poorly answered. It should be clear from these results that a large majority of teachers tested do not possess adequate levels of content knowledge,” the researchers said in their report.
The investigation found that teaching the new curriculum was also being hampered by “frequent disruptions” to the timetable for workshops, union meetings, memorial services and choir competitions.
At least 18% of teachers were not in class during the days when schools were visited by two researchers.
Education expert Jaco Deacon said the problem was poor leadership at schools, and that unless parents stood up for their children there would be no improvement.
Deacon, who is the deputy CEO of the Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools, said: “We have leaders who rather please unions or political parties instead of serving the children of the country by implementing the policies.
“They should be able to train or retrain in a very short time period if you have a good leader in the school system with a mentoring programme.”
Deacon said governing bodies and parents had to be vocal about teachers attending workshops and union meetings during class time.
The research acknowledged that while the small sample “precluded the findings from being representative of the South African teacher population”, the teachers’ test scores confirmed the findings of other research on teachers’ content knowledge.
“While they may understand how many tests should be set, they cannot understand the level of knowledge to be attained by their learners if they do not possess that knowledge themselves.”
A district official told researchers: “They [teachers] take any opportunity to do something other than their job. Unionisation is a factor: any innovation has to be negotiated before teachers accept it.”
The investigation found that “significant blockage” to the implementation of CAPS included:
The appointment of “inappropriate” ● candidates to promotion posts;
Ineffective in-service training; ●
The poor use of time in schools; ● Ineffective instructional leadership ● practices by subject advisers and school leaders; and
A lack of appropriate initial teacher education ● programmes for trainee teachers at universities.
The director-general of the Department of Basic Education, Mathanzima Mweli, did not respond to detailed questions.
The president of the National Professional Teachers Organisation of
South Africa, Nkosiphendule Ntantala, said he did not believe national changes should be made to the curriculum based on the report.
“The findings are based on a tiny sample of only 24 schools,” he said.