Education MEC examined on Caps
THE newly appointed MEC For Education in KZN, Mthandeni Dlungwane, answers some key questions:
With under 100 days to matric exams, many pupils seem to be panicking as, unlike previous years, they feel the standard of exam papers has been raised dramatically. What is your understanding of this?
It is normal for any matric pupil to be panicking at this time of the year: matric is the culmination of the minimum 12 years of schooling and covers the work done over three, Grades 10 to 12. It is normal for learners to feel panicky; we all did. It is for this reason that we work with other Social Cluster Departments to provide psycho-social support to learners. The high cognitive level in examination papers is within the scope of the Examination Guidelines used by teachers and examiners, it is not new. We have raised the cognitive levels of our common tests to prepare learners for the final examination.
According to education experts, this is a new type of stress for pupils and teachers – and is happening because pupils are being driven to continuously move forward, even if they don’t understand or are missing knowledge. They simply don’t have enough time to absorb all the content. Won’t this be counter-productive?
Each subject has the Annual Teaching Plan (ATP) which details what must be done on each school day. In Grade 12 the last day to finish the TAP is August 30. This allows for revision before trials and the final examination. We have conducted successful winter camps /revision classes focusing on the work of the first and the second term.
KZN’s matric pass rate has dropped steadily over the years, despite socalled “intervention programmes”? As new MEC, what realistic plans do you have to improve results?
I don’t want to be surprised by the results at the end of the year. In two weeks from now the June results will be out and they will inform us how learners are performing in mathematics, physical sciences and accounting, the three subjects we have to improve in terms of first-term results. When I launched the 100-days countdown I announced that we have scheduled Saturday classes in eight subjects done by most learners. The Saturday classes will be taught by a lead teacher using high quality materials prepared by subject experts.
What is your assessment of the Caps curriculum? Is it serving its purpose when the classroom challenges are so great – big classes, poor resources, under-qualified teachers etc?
Caps is a national curriculum relatively new but promulgated by us. The challenges you cite are somewhat a reality, but we have come a long way to address the imbalances of the past. We can’t be complacent; we have to keep improving. According to policy, the national minister must conduct a review of the curriculum at some stage to establish if it is serving its intended purpose. Until then this will be the third class of Grade 12 Caps.