SOUTH AFRICAN PRINCIPALS ASSOCIATION SAPA MEETING Business Studies

SOUTH AFRICAN PRINCIPALS ASSOCIATION (SAPA) MEETING Business Studies & Geography 24 MAY 2019

PRESENTATION OUTLINE 1. Purpose 2. Business Studies a) b) c) d) e) Participation rate trends Success rate trends Reasons for the decline National & Provincial interventions Teaching strategies 3. Geography a) b) c) d) e) Participation rate trends Success rate trends Reasons for the decline National & Provincial interventions Teaching strategies 4. Conclusion

PURPOSE To present to the South African Principals Association meeting the Business Studies and Geography Improvement Plans for discussion and further input

Business Studies

SUBJECT PARTICIPATION RATES Province 2016 2017 2018 Eastern Cape 30 192 27 261 23 808 Free State 11 907 11 443 11 326 Gauteng 47 680 46 197 45 050 Kwa-Zulu Natal 70 600 63 200 61 027 Limpopo 29 173 22 946 21 893 Mpumalanga 21 535 19 828 17 179 North West 11 384 11458 9 995 Northern Cape 3 963 3 517 3 694 Western Cape 22 296 21 307 22 245 NATIONAL 248 730 225 100 216 217 5

PERCENTAGE LEARNER ENROLMENT 6

SUBJECT SUCCESS RATES (2016– 2018 ) 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 2016 Eastern Cape 64. 7 Free State 86. 3 Gauteng 87. 1 Kwa-Zulu Natal 67. 8 Limpopo 59 Mpumalanga 71. 8 North West 85. 8 Northern Cape 78. 5 Western Cape 82. 5 NATIONAL 73. 3 2017 59. 5 78. 4 79. 3 63. 1 63 59. 2 75. 5 61. 9 71. 4 68 2018 60. 1 70. 7 74. 3 59. 5 63. 3 62. 3 69. 5 50 64. 7 64. 9 2016 2017 2018 7

REASONS FOR DECLINE • Expansive scope of the content and learners struggle to study all the work for the examination and resort to “spotting”. • Many candidates were unable to respond to questions that required application of knowledge and insight. This indicates deficiencies in quality teaching, learning and assessment. • Candidates’ responses revealed language challenges in comprehending or interpreting the questions e. g. when learners are required to quote from the scenario they paraphrased.

REASONS (CONTINUED) • Inability to respond to questions that were asked for the first time and this points to overreliance on previous papers e. g. Q 4. 5 • Candidates were unable to answer questions that were asked in the past but were phrased differently in this exam. E. g. Q 3. 3; Q 4. 6; Q 5. 3; and Q 6. 3 this points towards rote learning instead of understanding. • Candidates provided vague and incomplete response to questions that required full sentences.

NATIONAL INTERVENTIONS • Introduction of two papers in Grade 12 in 2020 to deal with content overload. • Distribution of and mediation of Diagnostic report to provinces. • Distribution of Mind The Gap Study Guide (end of May, currently at design & layout stage) • Provision of topic based revision manuals (each manual focuses only on a specific topic) • Facilitate the sharing of support material between provinces e. g. Preparatory papers and SSIP material from GP • Share best practices from best performing schools

PROVINCIAL INTERVENTIONS: • Mediation of the Diagnostic report to Subject Advisors and teachers. • Monitoring of curriculum coverage by SMT’s and SA’s to ensure that all the content is covered as per the Annual teaching plan • Training of teachers on challenging topics at beginning of each quarter. • EAC strategy to be strengthened to deal with language barrier. • Extra tuition provided: weekend, autumn, winter and spring classes • Provision of revision material.

TEACHING STRATEGIES • Learners must be provided with glossaries or develop own glossaries of concepts used in subject • Improve the quality of Formative assessment must be strengthened, must cover Section A, B and C questions. • Expose learners to different instructional/cognitive verbs and how to respond. • Ensure that remedial work takes place: teach, assess, reteach and reassess. • Profiling of learners for differentiated support

GEOGRAPHY

NATIONAL NUMBER OF LEARNERS (2016 – 2018) YEAR NUMBER OF LEARNERS 2016 302 600 2017 276 771 2018 269 621

NUMBER OF LEARNERS PER PROVINCE 2016 2018 GEOGRAPHY Province 2016 2017 2018 EC 34 928 29 894 26 046 FS 10 550 10 657 11 249 GP 50 006 47 299 47 305 KZN 76 277 67 017 63 897 LP 58 745 52 217 48 008 MP 26 454 24 741 23 660 NW 19 425 19 458 19 168 NC 5 963 5 277 6 361 WC 20 252 20 211 20 927

SUCCESS RATE: NATIONAL PASS PERCENTAGE (2013 – 2018) Geography Pass (2013 - 2018) 83 81 81. 3 80 79 77 75 73 71 69 77 76. 5 76. 9 74. 2

SUCCESS RATE: PROVINCIAL PASS PERCENTAGE (2016 – 2018) GEOGRAPHY PROVINCES 2016 2017 2018 EC 69. 4% *69. 8% 71. 3% (6) FS 90. 6% 90. 3 % 85. 1% (1) GP 86. 1% 86. 2 % 84. 5% (2) KZN 72. 1% 74. 0% 68. 9% (8) LP 70. 9% 69. 9% 67. 5% (9) MP 77. 1% 75. 2% 72. 4% (5) NW 79. 8% 79. 4 % 76. 5% (4) NC 79. 9% *85. 9% 69. 3% (7) WC 86. 3% 84. 2% 82. 5% (3) National 76. 5% 76. 9% 74. 2

2018 SUCCESS RATE: Achievement Per Level (Geo) Province L 1 L 2 L 3 L 4 L 5 L 6 L 7 EC 28. 7 26. 6 20. 8 13. 3 6. 8 2. 8 1. 0 FS 14. 9 25. 7 25. 9 18. 6 9. 7 3. 9 1. 2 GP 15. 5 27. 0 25. 5 17. 2 9. 6 4. 0 1. 2 KZN 31. 1 26. 3 20. 0 12. 4 6. 5 2. 8 0. 9 LP 32. 5 27. 9 19. 4 11. 6 5. 3 2. 3 0. 9 MP 27. 6 29. 3 22. 3 12. 6 5. 5 1. 9 0. 8 NW 23. 5 30. 6 23. 6 13. 2 5. 9 2. 4 0. 7 NC 30. 7 32. 8 21. 1 9. 5 4. 0 1. 4 0. 4 WC 17. 5 27. 0 22. 7 15. 7 9. 3 5. 0 2. 8 NAT 25. 8 27. 5 21. 9 13. 7 7. 0 3. 0 1. 1

2018 NATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT PER LEVEL (GEO) Geography 2018 30. 0 25. 8 27. 5 25. 0 21. 9 20. 0 13. 7 15. 0 10. 0 7. 0 5. 0 0. 0 3. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. 1 7

REASONS FOR THE DECLINE • Lack of content knowledge by learners: e. g. weather associated with a cold front, line thunderstorms, valley climates, drainage density, deforestation & river management systems, etc. ; • Limited understanding of concepts: e. g. cyclogenesis, drainage density, green belt, urbanisation, level of urbanisation, rate of urbanisation, uber taxi, gated communities, etc. ; • Poor response to Paragraph writing questions: failure to address both geographical aspects required; • Poor response to Mapwork: map code, coordinates, gradient, slope/aspect & identification of fluvial features; calculations, human-made features on a map • Integration of theory with mapwork- interpretation questions; • Lack of human resource: provincial coordinators & subject advisors to support and monitor schools.

INTERVENTION STRATEGIES • Mediation of the Diagnostic Report and Internal Moderators Reports; • Development of Subject Improvement Plans and target setting (all levels); • Capacity building of new teachers (especially those with Environmental Studies); • Monitoring of curriculum coverage (all levels); • Provinces to conduct workshops on problematic content; • Both national and provinces to distribute supplementary material (resources) to support teaching and learning, e. g. – Mind the Gap for learners; – Electronic maps; – DBE Mapwork & GIS Guide (10 -12); – Previous Question Papers; – EAC package; and – SBA Exemplar booklets. • Sharing of Telematics video lessons; • Radio lessons through community radio stations;

TEACHING STRATEGIES • Teachers should integrate map work with theory throughout the year, e. g. after teaching climatology, teacher should introduce synoptic weather maps to identify mid-latitude cyclones, tropical cyclones, anticyclones (HPs), interpretation of weather station models, topographical maps to identify valleys and slope/aspect on; • Provide a glossary of terms for each topic to be covered as part of addressing EAC in Geography; • Provide 3 quality informal assessment tasks per week (2 theory & 1 mapwork) to encourage regular study and writing; • Use of previous exam papers with diagrams to set informal assessment tasks; • Teach the metric system to assist with map calculations; • Teach paragraph writing using the PE-method (Point & Explanation) • Apply Team teaching methods in larger schools (especially with difficult topics)

CONCLUSION The meeting is requested to note the reasons for the decline in the performance of the subjects and the interventions strategies aimed at improving achievement.