The Grinding Issue: March 2024 Edition
Where art thou Dr. Kambule?
Today, we’re far from the era of Dr. Thamsanqa Kambule, the transformative principal of Orlando High, who elevated the school to rare heights in black education, equipping it with resources like the Sir Robert Birley library, named after the Eton headmaster and education advocate at Witwatersrand University. As a revered mathematics educator and a Senior Tutor at Wits University’s Department of Mathematics since 1978, Dr. Kambule made significant contributions, earning him accolades including the Order of the Baobab in Gold in 2002 and honorary doctorates from Wits and the University of Pretoria, along with honorary membership in the Actuarial Society of South Africa.
Reflecting on Dr. Kambule's legacy reminds us South Africans of our exposure to excellence, not just in mathematics but in life, encouraging us to advance the work of such pioneers. This month, as we scrutinize the current state of mathematics education in South Africa, our investigation reveals a concerning situation, underlining a crisis in the making.
With the world focusing on AI and machine learning as transformative forces, there's a looming risk that future generations may face significant employability challenges and our country may struggle to attract necessary investments to stay competitive globally.
No continuity in changes of programs – trial & error approach
That said, let us take some time to look back in recent history and draw a picture of how our country finds itself in such a predicament. In 1994, mathematics was a compulsory school subject until grade 9, and beyond that it was not compulsory. Those who registered for it at matric level did it on either higher or standard grade until 2007. In 2001 and 2002, the Outcome-Based Education (OBE) and the Common Task for Assessment (CTA) was introduced to high school learners, but was shortly discontinued due to serious challenges in terms of its implementation. In 2005 another curriculum change in the form of an “outcomes-based” approach was introduced. This change had a major impact in the learning and teaching in the GET (grades 7–9) due to the fact that it was very vague in terms of what had to be taught in different grades.
Curriculum change over the years has also affected the content to be taught in different grades. Changes involved moving content from one grade to another; removing some content and introducing new content. Recently, Technical Mathematics and Technical Science in technical schools in grade 10 from 2016 has been introduced. This clearly indicates that curriculum change in South Africa is a continuing process. Coupled with the change in curriculum was also the introduction of Mathematical Literacy as an alternative to be done by students who were not competent to do mathematics in the FET phase. This was done to cater for those students who could not do pure mathematics and to retain the compulsory status. This then ensures that all learners are exposed to some form of mathematics by the time they finish school.
Teacher quality is a problem
In the past decade, Venkat (Venkat H, Adler J, Rollnick M, Setati M, Vhurumuku E. Mathematics and science education research, policy and practice in South Africa: What are the relationships? African Journal of Research in Mathematics Science and Technology Education. 2009;13(special issue):5-2.) asserted that the number of students seeking to become senior secondary teachers of mathematics in schools has not kept pace with demand. This speaks to a shallow pipeline of developing competent mathematics teachers. Parker D. (Grade 10-12 mathematics curriculum reform in South Africa: A textual analysis of new national curriculum statements. African Journal of Research in SMT Education. 2006;10(2):59-73) notes that approximately 20% of grade 10–12 mathematics teachers are professionally unqualified and of those that are qualified, only 21% have some university level courses. In addition, there is also evidence to the fact that qualified mathematics teachers in the system are either not teaching mathematics or not teaching it at the level at which they are qualified.
It’s time to take ownership and hold the powers that be to account
Clearly a political solution in which the quality of successful performance standards in mathematics at grade 12 matric level have been lowered to 30% is not a solution. That compromise psychologically disadvantages concerned students who would like to pursue careers in which mathematics is required. In the Grinding Issue Oct 2021, Sandile Malinga writes “As you trawl through some of the academic research into education in SA, what is evident is that a necessary but insufficient condition to education reform is accountability. Accountability, as a capacity constraint, helps to explain why successive democratic cabinets have failed in addressing education. For those who suffer insomnia, I found this quite interesting in framing what seems like a problem too big to contemplate: Accountability and Capacity.”
The results
According to the 2019 Post-School Education and Training Monitoring report, between 2010 and 2016, the field of humanities accounted for the biggest share of graduations (6.6%). This was followed by science, engineering and technology, business management and education – with graduation rates of 5.5%, 5.2% and 1.8% respectively. With only 1.8% in education and mathematics being under-represented, who will be teaching future generations?
The New York Academy of Sciences estimates that sub-Saharan Africa needs 2.5-million more engineers to address the continent’s development problems. At this rate we will be importing skills from countries like India and China, which is already happening. Importing of skills is a good thing provided there is an intention to upskill the local labour force. The challenge is the mismatch between the requisite mathematical skills vs. the opportunity.
The World Economic Forum's "Future of Jobs" report predicts that 23% of global jobs will transform by 2027, with technological adoption leading to 69 million new jobs and the elimination of 83 million. The report highlights AI, machine learning, technology, sustainability, business intelligence, and information security as the fastest-growing fields. With the consistent underperformance in mathematics, how will the SA job/qualification mismatch gap be closed given the shift in global labour markets?
According to data from Statistics South Africa, the country's jobless rate rose to 32.9% of the labour force in the first quarter of 2023, up from 32.7%. The total number of unemployed youth (15-34 years) increased by 241 000 to 4.9 million, according to the report.
% participation at university level
The big Job mismatch in SA
The country faces a mismatch in its labour market, producing too many graduates in fields that don't align with economic growth, leading to high unemployment among them. Employers struggle to find skilled labour, and new jobs are often low-level positions, Dr Precious Mncayi (NWU) notes. Humanities graduates have the highest unemployment rate at 46.2%, followed by commerce at 42.3%, with education and sciences at 7.7% and 3.8%, respectively. Graduates in more professionally oriented fields like health science and accounting find jobs quicker. Although 82.6% of graduates are employed, 45% feel underemployed, and 58.5% believe their skills exceed their job requirements, indicating they are overqualified for their positions.
In South Africa, Adcorp's analysis reveals an unusual trend in education returns, noting that higher education levels correlate with better employment prospects. Employment rates for individuals without education or with primary and secondary education are relatively low, at 67.9% and 63.6%, respectively. However, employment probabilities significantly increase with the completion of higher education levels: certificates (72.4%), diplomas (84.8%), bachelor's degrees (88.8%), honour's degrees (92.7%), and postgraduate degrees (96.9%). Technical college qualifications (N 1-6, NTC 1-6, and NIC) show a decrease in employment chances in early years, with improvement only seen in the sixth year to match the employment likelihood of a Grade 12 education.
The politics of mathematics and education in South Africa
So, as we head into the 2024 general elections what are the different political parties saying about education and mathematics?
Here are some key points mentioned by some of the parties:
RISEMzansi: While there aren't direct quotes specifically about Math education, RISEMzansi emphasises improving the quality of teaching in all subjects, including science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. They aim to equip graduates with strong problem-solving, critical thinking, literacy, and numeracy skills.
ActionSA: ActionSA plans to depoliticise the education sector, particularly addressing issues such as union influence in teacher and school administrator recruitment. Their focus is on employing competent, dedicated teachers and enhancing mathematical, scientific, and critical thinking skills among learners.
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF): Although not explicitly stated, the EFF highlights the importance of educational equality and opportunities for all individuals regardless of background. Improving overall education standards implies strengthening various disciplines, including Mathematics.
Democratic Alliance (DA): The DA aims to address poor quality teaching and test teachers every three years. Additionally, they intend to introduce literacy and numeracy assessments at Grades 3, 6, and 9 to monitor progress continuously. Breaking union strangleholds on teacher appointments may indirectly impact Mathematics instruction since meritocracy becomes essential in hiring practices.
African National Congress (ANC): Based on the provided context, the ANC acknowledges the importance of mathematics and science education in preparing learners for the modern, knowledge-intensive economy. They aim to improve the quality of teaching in these subjects specifically, focusing on developing strong problem-solving, critical thinking, literacy, and numeracy skills among matric graduates. However, the text does not provide detailed recent statements or initiatives directly related to mathematics education by the ANC beyond this general sentiment.
Onwards & upwards
Semadi Ernaus Motau
Projects
Fun Learning for Youth (FLY)
The Grind Foundation’s relationship with the Fun Learning for Youth (FLY) programme is a key pillar of what The Grind stands for. “Fun Learning for Youth is a registered non-profit and public benefit organisation that aims to provide free maths and life skills tutoring services to disadvantaged learners.” Uplifting South African youth has and will always be key among what The Grind aims to achieve. In 2019 when this key partnership was established, The Grind participated in the fundraising efforts of FLY by buying tables at both the Johannesburg and Cape Town legs of the annual FLY gala dinners. These events have, over the years, proven very successful avenues for fundraising for FLY.
The Covid pandemic brought the activities of FLY to a grinding halt. This caused major disruption to the education system in the country and forced educators to try and find innovative ways to solve the problem of not being able to attend classes physically. FLY was very agile to this development, moving their tutoring efforts to an online platform provided by one of the volunteers in the FLY programme. While this was groundbreaking for the kids from the townships where FLY spreads its wings, access to the internet also proved to not be a foregone conclusion. This is where The Grind has again come in to lend a helping hand.
In 2021, The Grind launched an initiative to buy Tablets for the matric pupils of FLY at the beginning of the year. These were handed out to the FLY pupils in both Johannesburg and Cape Town. This included buying sim cards and providing data to the students on a regular basis. The lockdowns were still a feature in the lives of South Africans in 2021 and thus also prevented children from attending school when they were in effect. The tablets proved a timely intervention in allowing continuity for the matriculants, enabling them to continue with their FLY tutelage. While all were happy with the aide this provided for mathematics education, the feedback received from the students proved a very welcome upside to the broader benefits of this access. The pupils spoke of how this also allowed them to access materials for other subjects!
Through the continued donations from the members of The Grind and those from corporate partners, the tablets initiative continued in 2022. The following personal accounts have been received from the different recipients over the two years.
“Oh yeah, I used it in my matric year for downloading past papers and being able to watch YouTube videos. We also received mobile data which helped in being connected to the internet.” – Liyema (CPUT, Accounting, NQF level 6)
“Tablet helped me so much because I got to watch some of the content I didn’t understand on YouTube. I didn’t even need to go to libraries for internet because we were provided with data. That made my studies easier and everything accessible. Thank you so much for allowing me to be part of FLY. Keep on Flying!” – Sibulele (Electrical Engineering College of Cape Town – Pinelands Campus).
2023 saw the return of the first FLY gala dinner since 2019. The Grind, once again, was able to purchase two tables at the event. Another successful fundraising evening saw FLY able to replenish their much-needed financial resources. The Grind aims to continue with the collaboration through the tablet initiative. The next tablet handover to the FLY students is on 20 April 2024 at 13h00, at Realogile High School. The need for this initiative can never be overstated in a world where technology continues to drive all conversations regarding education and development.
Fundraising and Events Committee Update
We had our fund raising committee meeting on the 4th March 2024 and the below are the key take aways:
We decided to focus on 2 fund raising events due to time constraints and uptake.
We will host a hike-picnic on the 18th May 2024. A Save the Date flyer will go out soon. If there are any changes to the suggested date, we will communicate.
We will host a Golf Day on either the 26th October 2024 or 2nd November 2024. The 2 dates are dependant on course availability and fees.
We will target to host a Gala Dinner in 2025. The aim is to get 2 events under our belt before going for the flagship Gala dinner event.
We are hosting a strategy session on Tuesday the 16th April 2024. Members are welcome to join that meeting to share ideas.
