Factors which affect throughput rate of ACE (ML) students: Sarah Bansilal, Faculty of Education

Purpose In this article I look at the throughput rate for a group of 691 teachers who were enrolled in an ACE programme designed to train teachers to teach Mathematical literacy. The purpose of the article is to examine the effect of the variables of gender, enrolment purpose and race on the performance in modules as well as on the completion and drop-out rate.

Studies on Drop-out It was estimated by the DoE (Letseka 2007) that an estimated 30% of students who enrolled in 2000 had dropped out in their first year of study. A further (20%) dropped out during their second and third years. Of the remaining , 22% graduated within the specified three years duration for a generic Bachelor’s degree (Letseka & Maile 2005). Academic failure and poor career advice were cited as the reason for dropping out by over 80% of the surveyed drop-outs. Other reasons that were cited, were lack of finance, reasons related to institutional culture and personal or family reasons. The DOE study of the 2000 national cohort (Scott, Yeld & Hendry 2007), after 5 years showed that only 50% of first time entering students into (contact) universities had graduated and 38% had left their orignal instituions.

Mature students vs first time students In the case of the ACE programme, the students have already completed an initial qualification and are certain about their careers- they are employed, mature adults. The ACE qualification renders them fully qualified, a necessary requirement. So we expected very low drop out rates and high completion rates Not so in reality

Gender Recent studies show that the gender gap has decreased and in some cases have been reversed for the younger generation. TIMSS 99 -no gender difference in national performance but difference in performance by girls and boys in African schools. TIMSS 2003 there was no gender difference in any of the groups (Reddy 2006). SACMEQ II ; III :girls outperformed boys in mathematics (Saito 2010). At Grade 12 level :little difference between the performance of girls and boy in mathematics. In the 2010 Grade 12 examinations, 52% of boys passed mathematics while 44% of girls passed (DBE 2011). Some cases of girls outperforming boys at mathematics in Grade 12. In 2003 in Gauteng, girls scored more distinctions than boys and in townships more girls took mathematics and science on the higher grade and passed than boys (Kalideen 2004).

Enrolment purpose Upgrading: teachers with only an REQV 13 or Matric-plus-3-year qualification classified as enrolling for upgrading purpose Retraining: teachers who had an REQV 14 or higher were deemed to be enrolled for retraining purposes.

Upgrading All colleges of education shut down in the 1990s. Paterson and Arends (2009) :annual national graduate output from teacher colleges about between 1995 and Many of these college graduates have not been able to improve their qualification levels. Hugo et al., (2010: 5) report that teachers in KZN do not have a qualification higher than an M+3 (REQV 13). Thus many teachers grabbed the funded upgrading opportunity

Retraining Widespread curriculum changes – require d teachers to be retrained. Maths Lit introduced in 2006 to all learners not doing mathematics in the FETno trained ML teachers who could teach the subject. DoE did not have capacity to train Many teachers opted to join funded programme to retrain- subjects such as Mathematics, Afrikaans, History, Science etc

Structure of ACE Programme 8 modules - 6 ML-specific modules and 2 generic modules. Four of the six modules - content knowledge skills in ML, two modules - pedagogic content knowledge skills in ML. Two generic modules -general professional development, understanding of policy, conditions of service and the roles of the teacher. Has a split between educational studies; pedagogic content knowledge and content knowledge.

2007 Cohort 691 were still registered at the end of the first from the 800 who had accepted. Male : female = 25 : 75 Upgrading: retraining= 50:50 (info on 103 students n/a) Race African: Indian: Coloured: White = 588:92:5:4

Results (Gender) Use a four way ratio showing the percentage completing within 2 years: completing within 3 years: still in system after 3 years: drop out. The resp ratios for male and female students 50: 12: 1: 37 and 38: 16: 8: 37 The chi-square test for independence indicated a significant correlation between gender and completion rate (within two years) Perseverence? Performance in modules: For 7 out of 8modules, the mean (males)> mean (females).T-tests indicate significant differences in 5 modules

Results (Enrolment Purpose) 4way ratio for upgraders vs retrainers (resp): 34: 16: 8: 41 and 56: 11: 3: 30 A chi-square test for independence indicated a significant correlation between enrollment purpose and completion rate (within 2 yrs) Perseverence? Performance in modules: Mean(upgr)< mean (retrain) for all 8 modules T-tests indicate significant differences for all 8 modules

Results (Race) Only subgroups big enough for comparison were African and indian 4way ratio for African vs Indian (resp): 37: 18: 7: 37 and 63: 1: 0: 34 A chi-square test for independence -significant correlation between race and completion rate (in 2 yrs) Perseverence? Performance in modules: Mean(A)< mean (I) for all 8 modules T-tests indicate significant differences for all 8 modules

Results(disaggregation) AfricanNon-African 2yr3yrSSDON2yr3yrSSDON Upgrading male Upgrading female Retraining male Retraining female

Discussion Gender (why now, 78% of students older than 36) Enrolment purpose- shutting down of colleges? TEQF- good reasons for separating qualifications for diff purpose Race- apartheid legacy- colleges?