Maths, science – SA fails dismally
WEF: REPORT SHOWS ZAMBIA AND ZIMBABWE RANK TOP Basic education rubbishes findings, calling them flawed and perception-based.
Even though South Africa came second last out of 140 countries on the World Economic Forum (WEF) rankings in mathematics and science, local education authorities rubbished the rankings saying they were flawed.
However, education experts said the rankings were a close reflection of where education is in South Africa.
Educationalist Graeme Bloch said South Africa needs to up its game not only in mathematics and science but in all subjects.
“The rankings are pretty close, pupils need to be pushed and work hard in maths, science and humanities,” he said.
Bloch said education authorities in South Africa should be encouraging pupils to prioritise education. “Our schools need more well trained maths teachers, then we can head to the top.”
The department of basic education rejected the WEF report, saying it was a “bizarre set of opinion-based rankings of education quality”.
It said it was disappointed the rankings continued to be published even though they were flawed, and not based on empirical evidence obtained from research.
This year, WEF has announced, for example, that the quality of mathematics and science education is far better in Zambia, ranked 81, and Zimbabwe than Spain (84).
The department said: “It is unfortunate that the WEF publishes their flawed perception-based rankings when there are reliable international assessments that actually test representative samples of students.”
It added that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development regularly conducts its widely “respected Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), which tested mathematics, science and reading performance of students”.
The department of basic education admitted that although the level of South Africa’s performance in maths and science was a cause for concern, “we are clearly not the worst in the world and most importantly, we have improved our average results”.
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