Abstract
M.Ed.
Parents and students seem to have a positive attitude towards mathematics in
the Kwa-Zulu/Natal region. This is witnessed by the fact that even though there
is such a high failure rate, the number of students who still do mathematics at
standard 10 is still very high. For instance, according to the records' from the
education department of the region, more than 27 000 students in the Kwa-Zulu
Natal formerly black schools wrote standard ten examination in mathematics at
the end of 1995. The problem is that on the majority, they fail the subject. According to Greene (1993:47) a teacher may be seen as a dispenser of
knowledge and there is minimal regard for active and creative abilities of the
learners. The pupils therefore do not develop skills to solve problems. There is
scant opportunity for acknowledgement of alternative methods and
encouragement of creativity involved in the devising of such methods. They
have to learn the solutions that have been produced by the teacher and nothing
more. However, it is difficult to learn and remember solutions that have been prepared
by someone else. This usually lead to rote learning. Furthermore, it is not
necessarily the case that the problems that were solved in class would be part of
the examination. In many cases, very few or none of these problems that were
solved in class are included in the examination paper. This may be the reason
for the high failure rate. The aim of the study is to expose the causes of the high failure rate of
mathematics in the formerly black Kwa-Zulu/Natal schools. It is felt that the
reason for such a high failure rate is not that the students cannot understand or
do mathematics. It is because the teachers do not present the subject matter in a
manner that is understandable to the students and enables them to solve
mathematics problems on their own.
The study will, therefore, examine the teaching methods that are mostly applied
by the teachers in the region. Such methods will be scrutinised, in terms of
efficiency and effectiveness in enabling the students to solve mathematics
problems on their own. The study will also expose those methods that encourage
effective teaching of mathematics.