Is SA’s education system one of the worst in Africa / World?

1. Pockets of Excellence: Benchmarking Primary Education Mathematics Learner Performance in South Africa

2. Is SA’s education system one of the worst in Africa / World? • South Africa’s education system has been strongly criticised over the past few years: • textbook shortages • school infrastructure backlogs • teacher strikes • … & • learner performance Nationally and Internationally • teacher performance

3. Performance • TIMSS 2003 PIRLS 2006 SACMEQ 2007 NSES 2008-2010 ANA 2011 … 2014… =SA schools at rock bottom in international assessments =standard of Maths teaching in SA rock bottom =teachers can't teach what they don't know

4. *In SA : 2 education systems

5. Grade 3 Numeracy - learners 2 education systems

6. Grade 6 Numeracy - learners 2 education systems

7. Grade 6 Numeracy - teachers 2 education systems 7

8. Research Question • Are there South African learners that can compete with their peers internationally in Primary School Mathematics?

9. Scope of the Study The study investigated the degree to which Grade 3-7 learners performed in the Mathematics IBT in comparison to international learners.

10. Population & Sampling • SA schools serve middle to high – income learner populations, albeit with significant demographic differences in race and ethnic composition of their learner populations. • International Sample - a range of schools from Bahrain, India, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and UAE. • TIMSS in 2011 (e.g. Hong Kong , Singapore , Japan , United States , England , Australia etc.)

11. Instrument • ACER International Benchmark Test (IBT) in Mathematics Grades 3 - 7 • ACER Reports • IBT was used as it provided the IEB with a common test written by primary school learners both nationally and internationally and scored independently by ACER

12. Procedure • Scaled scores of Maths IBTs were compared to the mean scaled scores internationally • Per grade • Per strand in each grade

13. Results :IBT Scaled Scores National and International2013

14. IBT Scaled Scores and Strand Analysis (summary of Mathematics Results by Strand - % correct)

15. TIMSS Student Report Gr 3

16. TIMSS School Report Grade 6

17. Findings • The mean scores in Maths in Grades 3 -7 were all above the international average • The mean score in all strands is above the international average – all averages are above 60% in SA – internationally in the 50%s • There are schools and learners that perform in line with the top performing learners in countries such as Hong-Kong , Singapore and Chinese Taipei.

18. Discussion and Conclusion • There are learners and schools in South Africa that perform at internationally benchmarked levels in Mathematics • SA teachers can teach Mathematics • Challenge is to expand the pockets of excellence and make this internationally benchmarked level of performance available to every learner • Invest the appropriate resources at an appropriate level so that many more schools can follow… rather than simply investing in changing the curriculum again.

19. And, perhaps, when reporting, authorities should highlight how best performers are achieving to alleviate the sense of despair – we do have schools who are not using fancy ‘tricks’, just plain good teaching of the SA curriculum and achieving great results. That is where our focus needs to be – finding out how and why it works in these schools and try to replicate it. We cannot accept that SA learners cannot compare and compete in Mathematics internationally !

20. References *www.nicspaull.com/research