‘Despite improvements in matric results, maths remains a challenge’

Sir
The Congress of the People congratulates the learners who are going to successfully exit the school system with bachelors and diploma passes. We take great pride in the fact that there were 2316 distinctions achieved by the learners.
Most pleasing to us is the Minister’s acknowledgement of school and community support for learners. Poorer learners do not have the resources to pay for additional tuition and without the sacrifice of teachers and the supportive commitment of communities, they would have lagged behind. Thankfully this did not happen.
Free State MEC for Education, Tate Makgoe, also made a significant point. He paid tribute to the role of subject advisers in the Free State. In our view it is very important for subject advisers to be allowed to undertake their tasks without any impediment from SADTU.
While the examination monitoring body Umalusi has declared the 2016 examinations fair, valid and credible, and we are satisfied that incremental progress is being made, let us not forget that nearly a quarter of those who took the exams did not pass. Here again the Minister put her finger on the problem. Fewer than 5% of parents read to their children. Without an active reading culture and without substantial emphasis on the reading and study of quality literature, our education will have a serious carry over of an important deficit.
Another problem area is that of mathematics. This is an extremely serious problem. No society can succeed in the absence of a strong mathematics base. COPE earnestly believes that the Minister must reach out to society for assistance in this regard. Furthermore, additional resources must be poured into the training of quality maths teachers. We strongly advocate the reopening of Training Colleges. The skills needed for teaching need to be finely honed and Training Colleges have been particularly focussed on that.
We celebrate the fact that the class of 2016 achieved a 93.2% National Senior Certificate pass rate. We are glad that this year the results excluded the performance of progressed learners. The fact that the class of 2016 outperformed last years’ class by a factor of six percentage points is significant. We are on an upward trajectory with a great deal more to do before we sit on our laurels.
Congratulations to all who helped to improve the results.
Dennis Bloem
COPE