WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-02-13 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
[They point out that very strange “statistics” are coming out of our education system. A friend told me a newspaper had a big expose on the education system. In short, they need to artificially push up pass rates. They have to do it to such a degree that the top students in SA all get about 98% for every subject they write!!! Even so, the national average is lower than it was. So I read it as: “Despite massive artificial manipulation of the statistics the education system is collapsing”. These strange statistics are probably the key to proving that the Govt is ARTIFICIALLY MANIPULATING STATISTICS LIKE CRAZY in order to try to fool the rest of us and foreigners too.
Note that even 3rd world Tin Pot nations like Ghana are kicking our asses in Mathematics. On TV the one night they mentioned how many blacks pass higher grade maths. I can’t remember if they said 1.6 million wrote matric. Of them about 250,000 passed higher grade maths… but, of those, only 25,00 WERE BLACK. Blacks make up the majority of the school population but only a TINY PORTION pass higher grade maths. And maths is one of the subjects we need badly in this country, even if only for the purpose of counting how much money the ANC is stealing, or helping the Department of Education to manipulate its statistics more CONVINCINGLY! But seriously, they’ve said this country is seriously lacking in maths skills. It is a very real problem.
Everything the ANC has touched, it has buggered up. The next step for the ANC, is to start shutting down the free press and to start kicking blacks and journalists into line in a Stalinist way. That will be Jacob Zuma’s job. Jan]
There is definitely something strange going on at the department of education (DOE). Not only has it consistently produced appalling academic results and implemented innumerable harebrained schemes, but it is now also producing strange statistics.
One of my three beloved younger brothers matriculated last year. He did very well; he was one of the top twenty performers in his particular Ekhuruleni district. However, this fact escaped my family’s notice for some time, because, in the announcement, he was described as an Indian female. This is decidedly odd, given that his name is Andrew John Duncan, and he is as blonde-haired, blue-eyed and boy-like as they come.
Luckily my family is never surprised by the ineptitude of the DOE, because my mother has been a primary school teacher at various Ekhuruleni schools for around 25 years. So we rolled with the punch, and packed Andrew off for Rhodes unscathed.
However, others are finding it harder to recover from the DOE’s errors, in particular, the depressing quality of the education provided under its auspices. The DOE, basically, is not very good at educating. The results speak for themselves.
In the most recently released Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, which was for 2003, South Africa was at the very bottom of the charts for both maths and science (see Average mathematics scale scores of eighth-grade students, by country: 2003 and Average science scale scores of eighth-grade students, by country: 2003). We were beaten by countries including Ghana, Serbia and the Palestinian National Authority. That’s right, Palestinians, who do not even have a proper country, are better than us at maths and science. Lord only knows what the 2007 results will show, but probably not a dramatic improvement.
The table below, which shows the number of matric passes overall, as well as the number of passes in higher grade and standard grade maths and science, gives ample testimony to the problem. Less than 10% of matrics graduate with HG maths or HG science. In a world in which technological skills are increasingly essential to compete internationally, this is a crisis.
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2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 |
| Passed | 277206 | 305774 | 322492 | 330717 | 347184 | 351217 | 368217 |
| Maths HG | 19504 | 20528 | 23412 | 24143 | 26383 | 25217 | 25415 |
| % of passes | 7.04% | 6.71% | 7.26% | 7.30% | 7.60% | 7.18% | 6.90% |
| Maths SG | 72301 | 101289 | 104707 | 109664 | 112279 | 110452 | 123813 |
| % of passes | 26.08% | 33.13% | 32.47% | 33.16% | 32.34% | 31.45% | 33.63% |
| Total | 91805 | 121817 | 128119 | 133807 | 138662 | 135669 | 149228 |
| % of passes | 33.12% | 39.84% | 39.73% | 40.46% | 39.94% | 38.63% | 40.53% |
| Science HG | 24280 | 24888 | 26067 | 26975 | 29965 | 29781 | 28122 |
| % of passes | 8.76% | 8.14% | 8.08% | 8.16% | 8.63% | 8.48% | 7.64% |
| Science SG | 45314 | 70763 | 75693 | 73943 | 73667 | 81151 | 87485 |
| % of passes | 16.35% | 23.14% | 23.47% | 22.36% | 21.22% | 23.11% | 23.76% |
| Total | 69594 | 95651 | 101760 | 100918 | 103632 | 110932 | 115607 |
| % of passes | 25.11% | 31.28% | 31.55% | 30.51% | 29.85% | 31.59% | 31.40% |
We are in trouble, that much is certain. Without the basic numeracy necessary to negotiate the modern world, South Africans are going to be left behind.
The strange part is that we spend money on education like drunken sailors spending in a brothel. Eighteen percent of the total budgetary expenditure by the South Africa government goes to education. By way of comparison, welfare and social security gets 15%; police, prisons and courts gets 9%; and health gets just a shade under 11%.
South Africa spends 5,4% of GDP on education, compared to a sub-Saharan Africa average of 4,5%, yet Ghana and Botswana (the other two sub-Saharan countries measured in the TIMSS) both produce better outcomes than we do in maths and science.
It’s mystifying. The money isn’t helping the quality at all. Drastic action is needed, desperately. I am no educational expert, but my mom, who has been teaching tots to read, write and rithmatic for a quarter of a century makes the following suggestions:
* Make maths and science compulsory for all learners up to matric level, with a standard grade option for those who really, really struggle (this is how Asian schools generally do it)
* Offer special incentives to get maths and science university graduates to spend a year or two teaching in the worst-resourced schools (the Teach for America programme does something similar with some success). Consider tax breaks as well as cash incentives for such hardy souls
* Forget about the crazy method of maths education that involves allowing children to figure out how to do sums in their own groovy way that the dreaded outcomes-based education model emphasises. Maths is not like language, it is not an innate skill. Children have to learn the old-fashioned way. Consider using Kumon maths teaching methods
* Teaching science requires some props, but nothing the Great Outdoors can’t generally supply. Show kids how elemental forces work, let them cut up leaves, flowers and bugs. Stimulate a genuine interest in science, as well as a good, stiff course of the basic laws in all the scientific disciplines.
The problems the SA school system has, particularly with maths and science education, constitute national emergencies. The DOE’s incrementalist model, which has gradually bumped up the number of matriculants, and focused on racial quotas in universities and technikons, is not doing nearly enough to address the emergency. High-impact short-term methods are called for.
And, while they’re at it, they may want to run an eye over their systems for collecting sex and race data. My poor brother is still reeling from his DOE-precipitated identity crisis.
Source: http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page149519?oid=192199&sn=Detail