Article: Matric pass rate improved in 2012

Plumbers... I live across the road from a plumber. He has a big yacht in durban harbour...
 
JungleBoy said:
So those people complaining about Maths Literacy would rather have kids come out of school with no basic Maths ability.
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Absolutely not. I'm advocating a higher standard of basic mathematics examination. Recognising shapes, understanding what a percentage is and being able to calculate change from a hundred rand note is not matriculant standard. This is the type of thing I, and I expect many people, were taught in primary school...

Reality is that not everyone can cope with Pure Maths
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Which is why standard grade existed. What was wrong with it...?

Pure Maths which is only necesasry for acceptence into Engineering, Science, Medicine etc
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Maths Literacy assumes you are stupid. It really and truly does. It also assumes that later on in life you will never amount to anything more than being tasked with counting to a hundred and recognising what a triangle in the music shop is. We cannot continue lowering the bar while expecting to these matriculants to be the catalysts for future development and economic prosperity.

You cannot empower the youth to be productive members of society when you assume that 50% of them are incapable of being so in the first place...
 
Originally Posted by daveza
In order -
The parents
The government
The teachers
The kids
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Picard said:
Fixed that for you.
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Thanks for fixing it Picard.

My wife is a high school teacher at a good private school and I cannot agree more about the parents being at the top of the list.
She gives her job everything she has but she still has kids who have no discipline and refuse to learn (playing on cell phones under the desk, sleeping in class, etc.) Confiscating phones, sending them for detention, having pep talks, etc. does not help because they lack the discipline at home.
When the parents are called in the parents have the attitude of "it's the teachers job to teach my child discipline - not mine".
So a parent has 14+ years to screw up their kids and a teacher is supposed to "fix" the child within 6 months?! Get real ...

More often than not the problem children are either:
1. The one's who's parents are always away on business trips, overseas holidays, etc. and the child is left to fend for him/herself.
i.e. The parent's careers are more important than their children.
2. From a household where abuse and/or neglect are present and thus the child has emotional issues to deal with.

Before you think that this is about kids from poor areas, it's not.
I'm talking about parents living in R 5+ million mansions who buy their kids an M3, Hummer, etc. as an 18th birthday present with cash.

It's flipping unfair expecting a teacher who regularly works from 7AM till 10PM to sort out the root of the problem, when the root cause actually resides at home.
 
h770CA77F
 
Okay, today I'm kind of in the mood to type. Managed to get 6As for matric. :)

So, this is how the current subject choices go :

Compulsory subject 1: Maths OR Maths lit
Compulsory subject 2: *A Home language
Compulsory subject 3: *A first additional language
Compulsory subject 4: Life Orientation
*From a list of what I'm guessing are the official languages + more

"Choice" subjects 4-7. These are from this list (copied from Wikipedia):

Accounting
Act
Agricultural Management Practices
Agricultural Sciences
Agricultural Technology
Business Studies
Civil Technology
Computer Applications Technology (previously Computer Studies Standard Grade - Literacy)
Consumer Studies
Dance Studies
Design
Dramatic Arts
Economics
Electrical Technology
Engineering Graphics & Design
Geography
History
Hospitality Studies (previously Home Economics)
Information Technology (previously Computer Studies Higher Grade - Programming)
Life Sciences (previously Biology)
Mathematics: "Paper 3" (geometry, probability)
"Additional Mathematics" (calculus, further algebra, and one of: matrices, statistics, mathematical modelling)
Mechanical Technology
Music
Physical Science
Religion Studies
Second Additional Language
Third Additional Language
Tourism
Visual Arts

So, the whole deal about Maths lit being maths for home economics/hospitality studies is COMPLETELY OFF. You don't have to take maths lit to do hospitality stuff. They are in two different categories.

When you choose maths lit, you are choosing the maths skills that you intend matriculating and spending the rest of your life with. There is a HUGE difference between the two. I had friends who could barely pass maths and dropped to lit, yet they are now sitting with 90%. The gap is too vast. Lit is (and I'm sorry to say it) a bit of a joke. The government has implemented it to allow people to say that they have passed some sort of maths, when they should rather be passing maths albeit a little tougher.

And I understand the argument about people who may not need "scientific" maths and would only need it for day to day life but you need to understand that by putting a student into maths lit, they are limiting themselves from progressing any further. Perhaps a SG, HG pure maths would be bette, I don't know. Its like now, if you want to be an engineer/doctor/scientist then you take pure maths and it is reserved for you and if you take maths lit, you are completely STUCK with jobs way, way below that pay grade. So why not push yourself a little and take pure maths and when the time comes maybe 5 or 10 years down the line, you have the ability to do that kind of math and study for a degree of your choice?
 
Paul_S said:
Haha! It's actually the truth. The parents are never to blame.
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Wonder what has happened to the world to have the parents blaming teachers rather than the kids?
 
What is "Compulsory subject 4: Life Orientation" about?
 
daveza said:
What is that ?
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A subject to orientate your life. :whistle:

One of the most boring ones. How to deal with stress, relationships, conflict. Living healthy. Learning about lifestyle diseases. Safe sex. Labour relations. Rights and responsibilities. This the subject where physical education falls into.
 
ponder said:
Holy crap, I knew it was bad but not that bad. You should be able to do that **** in primary school.
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Gonna try persuade my step daughter who is going into grade 8 to try these exams for ****s and giggles.
 
How to deal with stress, relationships, conflict. Living healthy. Learning about lifestyle diseases. Safe sex. Labour relations. Rights and responsibilities. This the subject where physical education falls into.
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And this is a compulsory subject !? Yet we still have the highest rate of high school pregnancies on the planet ?
 
daveza said:
And this is a compulsory subject !? Yet we still have the highest rate of high school pregnancies on the planet ?
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Used to be called personal\counselling class? i think in my years. Not compulsory or examinable though.
 
Kosmik said:
Used to be called personal\counselling class? i think in my years. Not compulsory or examinable though.
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Yeah we also had that, think it was one or two lessons a week. No exams or books and stuff like that.
 
Sinbad said:
Guidance.
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Was called guidance counseling when I was at school and it was the freebie period effectively. Personally I'm glad they've structured it now and made it examinable, but it really shouldn't count equally towards an end-of-year mark. That is pretty ludicrous and just another way to push up the marks...
 
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