The quality of matric mathematics has been heavily criticised by many experts.<\/p>\n
Head of Department of the Wits School of Mathematics Betsie Jonck previously told<\/strong><\/a> MyBroadband that students are entering university under-prepared in the field of mathematics.<\/p>\n \u201cThe old [Higher Grade] did a much better job,\u201d said Jonck. \u201cThe curriculum is wide, but not deep enough.\u201d<\/p>\n To ensure that their children obtain the best possible education, many affluent South Africans choose to send their children to private schools.<\/p>\n This is because these schools are perceived to be of a higher standard than public schools, and will, therefore, leave them in better stead than if they went to a public school.<\/p>\n Most private schools teach the IEB curriculum – as opposed to the NSC curriculum which is taught by South African public schools.<\/p>\n MyBroadband asked mathematics experts in South Africa about the education learners receive in public and private schools.<\/p>\n Ruan Moolman, UCT lecturer and founder of the Academy for Maths, Science, and Technology (AMSAT<\/strong><\/a>), said that there is no difference between the maths curriculum of IEB-aligned schools and NSC curriculum.<\/p>\n However, Moolman believes that IEB maths papers are more challenging than NSC papers.<\/p>\n “IEB exams may deviate from that of the NSC CAPS, as long as IEB does not offer less. I have personally found, and in discussion with teachers and fellow colleagues, that the level of questions in the IEB maths exams does differ from that of the NSC CAPS.”<\/p>\n IEB papers consist of a Section A and a Section B – the latter of which, Moolman said, poses complex procedure and problem-solving type questions which aren’t commonly present in NSC papers.<\/p>\n However, Moolman said that teachers and his university colleagues have noticed that NSC exams have begun including more “Section B” type questions, and that these papers have been getting significantly more intricate recently.<\/p>\n Gareth Braatvedt, Deputy Head of Mathematics at the University of Johannesburg, explained that IEB is allowed to have 25% of its questions be “level 4” – which require higher-level thinking and problem solving – whereas NSC papers can only have 15% of the paper comprise these questions.<\/p>\n “This does not necessarily make the IEB paper \u201cbetter \/ more difficult\u201d as they sometimes tend to think,” contested Braatvedt.<\/p>\n “Level 4 questions are more focused on applications which are removed from mathematical knowledge. On the other hand, the Department of Basic Education has asked Level 4 mathematical questions which are beyond the scope of the module content.”<\/p>\n Moolman believes that teaching plays a critical role in a student’s mathematics ability – even more so than the curriculum a student writes.<\/p>\n “In ‘IEB’ classrooms, one can find low cognitive demand teaching happening; in ‘DBE’ classrooms, one can find high cognitive demand teaching happening,” he said.<\/p>\n Professor John Webb of the UCT Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics agrees that teaching is of critical importance, and believes that there is a crisis in mathematics teaching at the school level which results in high-achieving students failing to be challenged.<\/p>\n “They get their A for matric maths, for which they and their parents and their teachers and the Department of Basic Education are happy, but the next year they discover that their A has not adequately prepared them for university mathematics,” Webb said.<\/p>\n Webb attributed this to the fact that papers are now set at the same level as the old Standard Grade, which is why there are so many students who achieve A’s today compared to the past.<\/p>\n We asked mathematics experts in South Africa about the education learners receive in public and private schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341039,"featured_media":192616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18668],"tags":[35,25569,26318,25795],"class_list":["post-326193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline","tag-mathematics","tag-mathematics-teachers","tag-maths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341039"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327521,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326193\/revisions\/327521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Private vs Public<\/h3>\n
IEB is more difficult<\/h3>\n
Good teaching is important<\/h3>\n
Now read: South African ministers must fly economy class and buy their own cellphones<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"