{"id":246479,"date":"2018-05-26T18:00:20","date_gmt":"2018-05-26T16:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=246479"},"modified":"2018-05-25T14:18:30","modified_gmt":"2018-05-25T12:18:30","slug":"shocking-school-stats-this-is-how-many-south-african-students-repeat-a-grade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/246479\/shocking-school-stats-this-is-how-many-south-african-students-repeat-a-grade\/","title":{"rendered":"Shocking school stats: this is how many South African students repeat a grade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The South African Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has released a new report<\/a> <\/strong>on whether the current state-run school system aids or stunts the development of South African learners.<\/p>\n

The report is based on data provided by the department of education, and questions the possibility of moving towards ‘community-led’ schools (in addition to current public and private school offerings), which are run by parents and members of the community instead of governmental workers.<\/p>\n

“The data in this report shows that, among other things, only 33% of matric candidates \u2018passed\u2019 maths with a grade of 40% or higher; just 29.2% of schools have a library; only 18.3% of government schools have a science laboratory; and only 13% of the 2006 grade-1 class managed a university entry qualification when they wrote matric in 2017,” said the IRR’s Marius Roodt.<\/p>\n

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Repeaters<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the key findings of the report was that as\u00a0children advance through the school system, levels of grade repetition increase – particularly in the latter years of high school.<\/p>\n

This indicates inadequate preparation in earlier years, the IRR said.<\/p>\n

According to the data, grade 10 students are particularly at risk with over one in five students between 2009 and 2015 having to repeat the grade.<\/p>\n

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Poor maths and science results<\/strong><\/p>\n

The report also found that the\u00a0number of children who wrote both maths and physical science in matric has declined over the better part of a decade.<\/p>\n

“The proportion of candidates passing maths with a grade of 70% of higher has also declined (while it increased for science). Passing maths in matric remains a key marker of a person\u2019s likelihood of living a middle class life,” the report said.<\/p>\n

The IRR also noted that the ratio of maths literacy to maths pupils has changed over time in favour of the former – indicating a reduction in standards of maths education.<\/p>\n

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Read:\u00a0SA school textbooks to be rewritten in new history curriculum<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The report also looked at how many students are studying maths vs math literacy, and what the average marks are for maths and science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":108219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26,9583],"class_list":["post-246479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline","tag-irr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246479","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=246479"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247337,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246479\/revisions\/247337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}