Johannesburg - Ten percent. This is the average mark that Grade 9 pupils scored for maths in this year’s Annual National Assessment.
When making the announcement in Diepsloot on Thursday morning, a disappointed Angie Motshekga, Minister of Basic Education, said unlike the foundation phase, the senior phase was not responding to the department’s interventions.
The test, now in its third year, was written in September by over 7 million pupils from grades 1 to 9, with grades 7 and 8 taking part for the first time. The assessments aren’t used to grade pupils but are a diagnostic tool to test maths, language and literacy skills and to determine whether they know what they were supposed to have learnt in previous grades.
Last year, Grade 9 scored a 14 percent average and in 2012, the maths average was 12 percent.
“The Grade 9 results show our interventions are not working. Something has to give, the system is not responding at this point,” Motshekga said.
She said the department would do another in-depth investigation to assess where the problems in Grade 9 were, but admitted that she was disappointed as she thought that the department was on track with the interventions.
She said this was reflective of a deficit in the system, which peaks when pupils reach the senior phase.
The Star