Maths, science teachers concern

By Colleen Dardagan

More than half of South Africa's current maths and science teachers are not properly qualified, contributing to the country's massive skills shortage as would-be engineers fail to meet academic and industry standards.

Science and Technology Minister Mosibudi Mangena told delegates at the National Society for Black Engineers' conference in Durban on Thursday that more than 56 percent of the country's maths and science teachers were not properly qualified.

"This is a real problem. At the moment we are short of at least 1 000 engineers with five years' relevant experience. Compare this with the 238 civil engineers who graduated in 2002 that would by now have the required five years' experience - it's just not enough."

Vusi Mdakane, the managing director of the society, said that delegates at the conference had also raised the issue that many engineers graduating from local universities were simply unemployable.

"There is a definite gap and our plan is to engage with companies to establish what they expect from a graduate." Mangena said the industry needed to tell tertiary institutions what they wanted.

"It's up to them to sit down with universities and discuss the quality of the students who are graduating.

"Another problem is companies are biased towards certain universities when they hire engineers. They tend to stick to those they know rather than finding out about what other universities across the country can offer," he said.

However, Allyson Lawless, the former president of the South African Institute of Civil Engineers and who has published a book on the subject, said the industry was talking to tertiary institutions, but did not have time to "hand-hold" graduates.

"It's one thing to talk about the problem we have to do something about it, and quite frankly, industry is just too busy. Students are not career-ready because they were not ready for tertiary study when they leave school. You cannot expect universities to solve a problem that went wrong in a child's life for over 12 years in just four years.

"I agree we have to find a solution, and I believe the only way we are going to turn the problem around is if the industry is prepared to assess each graduate individually.

"Many have to be taught basic skills, such as numeracy and problem-solving, from the beginning. That is not only time consuming, but expensive as well."

Highly critical of the Outcomes Based Education system in schools, Lawless said it was producing students who were simply not university ready.

"OBE teaches process, not principle - this is an international problem. Also, a number of children enrol at universities who have been schooled in hugely under-resourced classrooms or the maths teacher was not up to scratch - you cannot blame them for not being able to cope."

Lawless, who headed a pilot project to place 100 graduates in local government together with 50 retired engineers, said mentorship was probably the best solution.

"We have monitored this process very carefully and the students have made good progress, but it is time consuming because most of them have to be constantly monitored.

"You can't just throw them into a job and expect them to get on with it."

From:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20070928033353855C425298