Urgent teacher improvement needed - IFP

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Published Jul 23, 2014

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Durban - Urgent intervention is needed to stop the “poor teacher-poor learner” cycle in maths, the Inkatha Freedom Party said on Wednesday.

“The IFP will write to the basic education portfolio committee chairperson to consider the importance of finding better ways of teaching maths,” IFP KwaZulu-Natal MPL Thembeni kaMadlopha-Mthethwa said in a statement.

On Monday, a report said that 253 KwaZulu-Natal teachers were tested to determine their knowledge of the subjects they taught.

Matric maths teachers wrote a past matric maths paper and achieved an average mark of 57 percent. A quarter of them scored below 39 percent.

The research was published in the “Perspectives in Education Journal” in March. It was authored by Thokozani Mkhwanazi and Sarah Bansilal from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and Deonarain Brijlall from the Durban University of Technology.

The difficulty of the questions was broken down into four levels, with level four being the hardest. The teachers managed an average of 26 percent on level four questions, which made researchers question how they could be teaching their pupils.

“If we want to improve student learning, we must find a way to improve teaching. Secondly, we need to determine how our policy initiatives have influenced classroom practice,” said kaMadlopha-Mthethwa.

“Quality teaching leads to quality education and this must become the norm in all schools in KwaZulu-Natal.” - Sapa

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