Durban - Many matrics who sat their final exams last year were tripped up by language and careless errors such as incorrectly copying a formula from the question script.
A report released by the Basic Education Department this week, which details how pupils coped with specific questions in 11 subjects including maths and the sciences, said poor language skills were a “major” reason for underachievement.
But the finger has also been pointed at teachers who have a poor grasp of the content they teach, and who neglected to teach the curriculum in its entirety.
The department’s analysis of matric answer scripts revealed that pupils battled with questions which required independent or creative thought, and that they had not mastered what they should have learnt earlier at high school.
In “many” instances, the report said, pupils had simply memorised an answer to a past matric paper, and regurgitated it in response to a similar question.
The report is intended to be a resource for Grade 12 teachers, identifying the content which pupils battle with and suggesting how it be remedied.
It suggests a number of interventions, which include having officials in charge of education districts closely monitor schools to ensure that all the topics in a subject are taught according to schedule.
Turning to English first additional language, pupils did best on the comprehension section, and worst when asked to analyse a cartoon. Matrics also battled to understand the figurative use of the word “sunshine” in an advertisement.
In the essay section, many pupils “had good ideas, but lacked the skills to convey these ideas successfully” the report stated.
Pupils whose mother tongue was not English needed to be exposed to a larger variety of texts in their classrooms.
The maths paper one was judged as having a good spread of questions of varying difficulty. Pupils struggled most with calculus.
In the section on algebra, despite being given a sheet with the correct formula, many pupils wrote down the incorrect one in their answer script.
Sections on calculus and counting principles were also poorly answered - some pupils could not correctly answer a question which required them to know how many letters there were in the English alphabet.
“The literacy level of many candidates is cause for concern… Some candidates are not familiar with terminology that is frequently used in maths, namely: estimate, hence, show that, and prove that.”
With the maths literacy paper, the average mark for the section on area, volume and time was 38%. Matrics could not convert 2 200mm to 2.2m.
The Mercury