Workshops to improve maths teachers' skills

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The Teacher Training Centre Workshops was launched by Minister Angie Motshega on Sunday, 10 August 2014, at OR Tambo International Airport.

"DBE and Provincial Departments of Education will conduct the workshops for Teacher Training Centre managers, geared to drive the provision of quality training to our teachers in order to improve their skills and competencies," the department said.

The DBE said content knowledge by teachers across all grades was identified as a challenge years back but action has been taken to address the matter.

"We have noticed a steady and sustained improvement in MST National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination results. This is a result of strategic systemic interventions for strengthening and raising performance at all levels of the system," said the DBE.

In February last year, Minister Motshekga established a Ministerial Task Team for to look into the implementation of the MST Strategy.

The Task Team presented a report of its findings in June last year and made recommendations, which were later implemented in schools.

"We have already established the MST Office, with its main job being to drive the MST curriculum and assessment targets in the sector. The national MST institute and nine provincial institutes will in the next five years increase outputs in order to turnaround MST by 2019," said the department.

It said the institutes will provide strategic support and advise the DBE on MST matters, conduct research, undertake impact studies, and provide teacher development programmes and support materials to turnaround MST in the country.

Pass rates

The department said the number of passes in Mathematics increased to 142,666 in 2013, recording 20,696 more than the 121,970 passes of 2012.

"In Physical Sciences, we experienced an increase of 124 206 passes in 2013, which is 14 288 more than the 109 918 of 2012 passes, in line with the National Development Plan and the Sector Plan," said the DBE.

"The detailed diagnostic analysis of NSC results has enabled us to implement improvement strategies."

Digital learning

In partnership with Vodacom, DBE has connected 40 Teacher Centres across the nine provinces. In addition to the training at the centres, teachers attend weekly webinars to gain knowledge on specific areas of the curriculum.

"Vodacom will further equip and connect 20 new teacher centres. This means that a total of 60 teacher centres will be fully digitised by the end of this financial year," said the department.

"So far we equipped and connected 40 (31 of these were equipped in 2013/14) teacher centres throughout the country; connected 890 schools, established www.digitalclassroom.co.za and trained teachers."

The department said it focused on raising the success rate and quality of passes in MST through various strategic interventions and partnerships.

The department said its partnership with Sasol-Inzalo has resulted in the development of Hybrid Workbooks in Natural Sciences, Technology and Mathematics, in order to strengthen Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) implementation in the senior phase.

"We have also partnered with Japan in the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Project to improve learners' ability to solve word problems in primary school Mathematics," the DBE said.

Minister Motshekga last week launched Subject Committees and Professional Learning Communities to promote discussion and inputs by subject specialists on curriculum policy development and implementation.