South Africa's big matric maths problem

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Jamie McKane

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South Africa's big matric maths problem

The quality of matric mathematics education in South Africa has been criticised by education practitioners in recent years.

Professor John Webb of the UCT Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics believes that the standard of matric mathematics has dropped substantially.
 
Jamie McKane said:
South Africa's big matric maths problem

The quality of matric mathematics education in South Africa has been criticised by education practitioners in recent years.

Professor John Webb of the UCT Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics believes that the standard of matric mathematics has dropped substantially.
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:unsure: Glass Castle Commentary
 
I saw a maths paper that had a word sum in it. At every number they'll add the symbol like (A) and then at the end give you a formula something like (A+B)*(C).

Like what is even the point of word sums? They made a complete joke of the whole point of taking maths. Learning to problem solve.
 
Let's not pretend that university is much better. Most of the undergrad stuff is pretty much parrot and pass.
Only when you get to masters or higher do you actually need critical thinking.
 
whatwhat said:
Let's not pretend that university is much better. Most of the undergrad stuff is pretty much parrot and pass.
Only when you get to masters or higher do you actually need critical thinking.
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I can't imagine it's changed that much since I went to uni about 10 years ago? Not a chance you would have been able to parrot fashion study Calculus :/

Also writing this made me think crap, I've been out of uni longer than I thought /o\
 
whatwhat said:
Let's not pretend that university is much better. Most of the undergrad stuff is pretty much parrot and pass.
Only when you get to masters or higher do you actually need critical thinking.
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Ok boomer.
:ROFL::ROFL::ROFL::ROFL::ROFL:


edit:
jokes aside, I don't think that is the case. The sheer dropout rate for university math is an indication that it is filtering on critical thinking as that is what is lacking in school math.
 
GhostSixFour said:
I saw a maths paper that had a word sum in it. At every number they'll add the symbol like (A) and then at the end give you a formula something like (A+B)*(C).

Like what is even the point of word sums? They made a complete joke of the whole point of taking maths. Learning to problem solve.
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The point of word sums is to learn how racist white people are... bigot.
Expect to see this nonsense in SA curricula in the near feature.
 
konfab said:
The point of word sums is to learn how racist white people are... bigot.
Expect to see this nonsense in SA curricula in the near feature.
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Oh, my, f_uck! The idiocy is spreading and every year there are more and more winners of the Darwin award.
 
To be successful in maths, you need brains and if you don't, sorry. I can't help you! Anti-colonialism or whatever party or whatever you want cannot help you. The weather or your spooks, nothing! You are stuffed!
 
Actually I am 2 Years out of school and all i can say is the Maths of High school taught me nothing but studying formulas. I Failed first year Math because i relied too much on the calculator and not thinking with understanding. I remember my first month in Uni math felt like i never learned math in my life. I could not think out of the box and i just felt stuck. It took me too long to figure out understanding of certain things and could not recover my mark.

Now i am doing much better and passing with a C but i still feel the effects. The reason why so many people struggle with math in High school is because the teachers with all due repsect teach you what you need to know and not the understanding of the work. Thats why if they given a question that does not look like one from the class room they more than likely wont get it cuz they dont understand what they doing. Reducing the pass mark is just moving the goal post its not fixing the problem.

Math is not difficult if you taught to understand it. That is what they don't teach. Oh and high school students are lazy.
 
Puffy_Nipples said:
Actually I am 2 Years out of school and all i can say is the Maths of High school taught me nothing but studying formulas. I Failed first year Math because i relied too much on the calculator and not thinking with understanding. I remember my first month in Uni math felt like i never learned math in my life. I could not think out of the box and i just felt stuck. It took me too long to figure out understanding of certain things and could not recover my mark.

Now i am doing much better and passing with a C but i still feel the effects. The reason why so many people struggle with math in High school is because the teachers with all due repsect teach you what you need to know and not the understanding of the work. Thats why if they given a question that does not look like one from the class room they more than likely wont get it cuz they dont understand what they doing. Reducing the pass mark is just moving the goal post its not fixing the problem.

Math is not difficult if you taught to understand it. That is what they don't teach. Oh and high school students are lazy.
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Getting rid of the calculator and actually doing proofs was one of the biggest shocks I have ever had to do in my life. I was extremely lazy at school, fully mastering every function of my calculator.

I went from getting 88% in school, to 40% for the first tut test on inequalities. Luckily I managed to catch up by the time my first semester ended though, also getting me a C in first year overall.

But it turns out my calculator skillz were pretty useful in 3rd year when you really do need a calculator (especially one that can do complex substitutions)
 
I hated maths in school purely because my teachers had no passion or proper understanding - hindsight is 20/20
Now I program various financial algos for currency/bonds/derivatives etc and have to really understand 110% of the maths behind it. Calculus is no joke but once you understand the basics properly, it becomes much easier!

I wish someone explained the proofs in maths in much more detail alongside what you can really achieve with maths!
 
The only thing the calculators could do when I was at school was trigonometric functions, square roots and such. In other words just basic things that meant you didn't have to look the result up in a book of tables. You couldn't get through school mathematics by rote learning and repeating back known answers. Except in the case of proofs and that works at university too. There was still a huge gap between school level and university level. Both in difficulty and the educational environment. Even decades back the drop out rate was far too high.

ThinkCentre said:
To be successful in maths, you need brains and if you don't, sorry. I can't help you! Anti-colonialism or whatever party or whatever you want cannot help you. The weather or your spooks, nothing! You are stuffed!
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It needs a good teacher too. A second-rate or lazy teacher can undermine even the smarter children. Although that is less of a problem today if they have access to the internet. It's also hard to catch up if there is a bad year along the way.
 
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