Matriculants to Tackle First Maths Paper

On Friday morning, 1 November 2013, our National Senior Certificate candidates will be writing the "all important" mathematics paper one.

Mathematics paper two will be written on Tuesday,  5 November.

Mathematics as a subject is crucial to the development and progress of the Western Cape and forms the basis of many of our further education and training fields in science, technology, engineering and business – all key sectors for a growing economy such as ours.

It is also an important subject for many candidates who want to pursue specific career paths as they would need mathematics to qualify for certain university degrees and training fields.

Therefore, as a government, we are working hard to encourage more learners to take mathematics so that we can grow our future economic workforce and broaden the life chances of our learners.

In the last two years we have seen increases in the numbers of candidates writing and passing mathematics.

In 2011, 14 304 candidates wrote mathematics. This increased to 15 397 in 2012.

The numbers passing also increased from 9 820 (2011) to 11 311 (2012), a percentage pass rate increase from 68.7% to 73.5%.

This year, we are hoping to see further increases in the number of candidates passing in this subject on the back of 16 891 full-time candidates registered to write the mathematics examination in 2013.

All grade 12 candidates have been given a Tips for Success booklet which outlines the content that candidates need to cover in order to prepare for this exam.

Paper one will include the following subject areas:

• Equations and inequalities
• Number patterns and sequences
• Functions and graphs
• Financial mathematics
• Calculus
• Linear programming

Paper two will include the following subject areas:

• Data handling
• Analytical geometry
• Transformation geometry
• Trigonometry

I would like to wish all candidates writing this subject the best of luck in these examinations.

One tip - Please don’t forget your approved scientific calculator or your maths instruments.

Over the last two years, the WCED has invested heavily in the improvement of mathematics in schools.

The WCED launched a new maths strategy which aims to:

• Increase participation rates in mathematics
• Increase the numbers of those passing these subjects in Grade 12
• Improve the quality of passes at grade 12 in terms of improved average scores and/or numbers of learners achieving A, B and C symbols
• Encourage schools to increase the number of Grade 10s taking mathematics

The WCED will have invested approximately R113 million in this strategy for over a five-year period.

The main focus area of the strategy is on teacher development and support, the provision of additional resources, and monitoring and evaluation.

We are hopeful that our initial interventions will pay off and we will see further improvements in mathematics this year.