{"id":193220,"date":"2017-08-18T09:25:25","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T07:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=193220"},"modified":"2017-08-18T09:25:25","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T07:25:25","slug":"scrapping-compulsory-maths-has-dire-consequences-for-sa-accountants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/193220\/scrapping-compulsory-maths-has-dire-consequences-for-sa-accountants\/","title":{"rendered":"Scrapping compulsory maths has dire consequences for SA accountants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The South African Institute of Professional Accountants (SAIPA) has criticised government&#8217;s move to repeal maths as a compulsory requirement for accounting and science at schools.<\/p>\n<p>This follows\u00a0a Government Gazette notice\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gov.za\/documents\/south-african-schools-act-regulations-national-curriculum-statement-grades-r-12-repeal\">published on 21 July<\/a><\/strong>, in which the department of basic education\u00a0called for written submissions on the scrapping of the mathematics as a compulsory requirement when electing to study accounting and physical sciences in\u00a0Grades R \u2013 12.<\/p>\n<p>However, the removal of the requirement is likely to have dire consequences &#8211; both for students as well as the accounting profession South Africa, said Faith Ngwenya, technical executive at Saipa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can never be an accountant if you do not understand maths,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>She indicated that\u00a0mathematics not only deals with understanding calculations but also helps build skills in concrete reasoning, spatial reasoning, and logical reasoning.<\/p>\n<p>Ngwenya also said that there was currently a shortage of qualified accountants in South Africa and that the proposed changes would only exacerbate this problem further.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRather than eliminating the subject because of bad results, the government should look at the way teachers are remunerated. We need good quality educators.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are living in a world of measurements. We have to measure lengths, areas, volumes and weights. We have to fix timings, prices, wages, rates, percentages, targets and exchanges,&#8221; Ngwenya said.<\/p>\n<p>Department spokesperson\u00a0Troy Martens indicated that the changes were made to prevent subject choices limiting career opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we found, when we made the provision originally, is that in making students take mathematics with accounting it tended to exclude people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe changes were made to accommodate students who were looking at more\u00a0administrative accounting and entering degrees such as a BCom Marketing.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/187173\/government-wants-to-scrap-compulsory-maths-for-accounting-and-science\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Government wants to scrap compulsory maths for accounting and science<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The South African Institute of Professional Accountants (SAIPA) has criticised government&#8217;s move to repeal maths as a compulsory requirement for accounting and science at schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":51632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26,10305],"class_list":["post-193220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline","tag-saipa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193220"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193260,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193220\/revisions\/193260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}