School maths and workplace numeracy disconnect fuels skills mismatches
24-03-2025
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The Content Engine
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Basic numeracy skills gaps in workplaces continue to thwart business. These foundational education skills are used in warehouses for inventory management; in transport to determine the correct weight of deliveries and supplies; on worksites to correctly measure installations; and on farms to calculate the right quantity of herbicides and pesticides, among other applications. Then there is the role that numeracy plays, together with literacy, in making sense of the world around us. This facilitates critical and logical thinking and, therefore, sound decision making. An ability to make the appropriate choices quickly when there are unexpected changes to work scope reduces mistakes and even accidents. Therefore, this ability is valued in the construction and mining industries where there are many variables. It is a skill that is becoming increasingly relevant in manufacturing industries that are automating their processes. Machines can perform mundane and repetitive tasks, but they are only as efficient as the critical and logical thinking, as well as decision making skills of their operators.
Therefore, it is a concern that there has been a further decline in the competencies of foundational mathematics education. According to the 2030 Reading Panel report, the proportion of South African maths teachers performing at the advanced level of between five and eight declined from 98% to 92%. 67% of teachers function at levels seven and eight and 26% at levels of between five and six. Meanwhile, only 32% of teachers reached the highest competency level in 2021. This while the proportion of teachers performing at the basic skills levels increased from 1,4% in 2013 to 7,3% in 2021. Worryingly, 7,8% of maths teachers in Gauteng are described as only having pre-numeracy skills. This means that they can only apply single-step addition. These mathematics teachers cannot develop strong numeracy foundations that will enable the learning of more advanced mathematical concepts in later grades. This is not to mention the role that numeracy plays in many other subjects, including science, technology, engineering and even social sciences.
Marco Maree, a Triple E Training Training and Development Advisor, warns that while the quality of traditional foundational numeracy education continues to slip, industry’s mathematics skills have advanced over the years.
“Traditional mathematics education is an abstract, rule-bound individual activity with one correct answer. This may usually consist of a number; an algebraic expression, or a standard graph. Mistakes are merely a temporary setback. On the other hand, numeracy in the workplace entails the practical application of rational numbers and the metric measurement system. It involves performing approximations and estimations in critical calculations with other employees. In many instances, the process incorporates additional key competencies, such as planning, organising, cooperation and effective communication. The consequences of incorrect calculations can range from minor mistakes to major errors that cost companies time and money. They can even be dangerous in some industries if tasks involve the correct measurement of chemicals, for example. Crop sprayers in the agricultural industry cannot afford to get it wrong,” Maree says.
As a workplace literacy training provider, Triple E Training, therefore, ensures that employees have a deep understanding of the metric system within the context of their workplace. An understanding of rational numbers, such as fractions and decimals, are taught by making explicit connections with practical activities. The focus is also on teaching employees how to read and interpret non-standard graphs, labels, tables, charts and other ready reckoners for meaning. This is in addition to showing employees how to complete record sheets and templates for calculations accurately. Critical thinking and problem solving are also emphasised considering the need to be able to make sense of tasks and ill-defined problems in unfamiliar workplace situations. This focus on developing metacognitive strategies, such as learning to learn; critical thinking; planning; and problem solving, is important considering that workplace numeracy is specific and not every context or situation can be covered in formal training. Employees need to be able to think for themselves. Therefore, it is not only low- or unskilled employees who are registered on Triple E Training’s adult numeracy training programme. It is also used to upgrade the numeracy skills of employees who have matriculated but performed poorly in maths.
“It would be impossible to teach employees these skills without a solid mathematics education, or with little or no knowledge of social-cultural numeracy context of the workplace. Certainly, one cannot expect the school curricula to keep pace with the workplace literacy demands of employers as they are changing constantly. The already-rapid rate of technological change will accelerate especially when it is also being driven by artificial intelligence. However, it is not unreasonable to assume that mathematics teachers are at least proficient in the subject that they teach. Declining maths education needs to be addressed urgently. It is only then that we can we start finding solutions to bridge not just a gap but a gaping chasm that has emerged between the maths skills taught at school and those that are actually needed in the workplace,” Maree says.
For example, Triple E Training’s adult numeracy training level 4 facilitators need to at least be mathematically skilled. This is level 6 mathematical knowledge, which entails an ability to solve multiple operation problems involving fractions, ratios and decimals. As such, these educators are equipped to transfer the ability to solve problems that involve mathematical information to employees at a National Qualifications Framework Level 1, the bedrock of further learning. While many employees are skilled and proficient in their jobs, they cannot formalise this with a qualification due to poor numeracy skills. This is also contributing to the dire shortage of qualified artisans, with many technical trades requiring basic maths skills.
Maree says that the onus also lies with companies to equip entry-level employees with the skills that they need to succeed. This is considering that literacy and numeracy skills requirements differ from one workplace to another, even if companies operate in the same industries and compete in similar markets. They employ uniquely different processes to give them a competitive edge. The types of calculations that need to be performed also differ from one job to another in the same companies. Once these have been learned, they have to be embedded through practice. When they have been fully entrenched, they seldom resemble mathematics.
For example, in the manufacturing and agricultural industries, employees will use maths skills to operate machinery and equipment. Numbers and computations are derived from measuring physical quantities. Employees must also understand conceptual qualities, such as averages, when problematic data is involved. However, assembly and operative workers only need to be able to use mathematics to interpret context.
“In many instances, the numeracy skills required by many blue-collar workers are not necessarily found high up in the school curricula. They are essentially basic education or foundational skills but applied in complex ways to solve vague problems that are evolving constantly and are not themselves always mathematical in nature. However, the mathematical skills developed at school underpin workplace numeracy. Once this is in place, companies can develop workplace numeracy because this education cannot be approached from a traditional ‘school” mathematics mindset,” Maree concludes.
For more information contact:
David Poggiolini
david@thecontententengine.co.za
Debbie Poggiolini
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