Poor mathematics results in the recently announced annual national assessment (ANA) have once again brought the debate over the relevance of maths literacy in schools.

Results in the province, and the nation at large, showed a steady decline in the number of pupils who take pure mathematics, opting for the less-challenging mathematical literacy, which is a basic numeracy subject.

Education MEC Louisa Mabe said while mathematical numeracy was still relevant, there was need to make sure more pupils enrolled for pure mathematics.

“Mathematical literacy gives all pupils a chance to learn basic numeracy skills that would help them in life,” she said. “However, the challenge we have is that more and more pupils seem to be leaving mathematics and this does not help as we want future leaders in our mines and agriculture sector.”

Chief director for curriculum and examinations in the North West, Dr Jacobus Myburgh, said debate was raging on the issue of mathematical literacy and that poor ANA results would add to the discussion.

“There has been significant concern over mathematical literacy, but like the MEC said, the subject is good in preparing everyone for their own numerate skills.

“It also gives a good foundation for pure maths. However, it appears some of the pupils who could pass pure mathematics are opting for the less-important maths literacy,” he said.Myburgh said about 15% of pupils in the 2011 matric results scored above 70% in maths literacy, which gave them a good chance to pass pure maths.

The average mark for Grade 9 pupils in the ANA results puts the province at 11.2% against the national average of 12.7%. Other lower grades were slightly better but they all fell short of the national average.

“These results hugely disappointed us as a province and we feel a lot has to be done.

Our Grade 12s usually do well and it is time we put emphasis on all grades because performance at Grade 9 as reflected in the results is very bad,” said Myburgh, indicating that they would wait to see how pupils performed in the provincial examinations at the end of this year.

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