Pupils from township high schools who do well in maths and science often hit a brick wall when studying these subjects at tertiary level.
Pupils from township high schools who do well in maths and science often hit a brick wall when studying these subjects at tertiary level.
Masivuye Mangcangaza, a former Nathaniel Nyaluza Secondary School pupil, believes this is because teachers and parents fail to guide learners onto the right career paths.
"From my experience, choosing maths and science in high school and excelling in them doesn't guarantee success at tertiary level," he said. He enrolled to study a BSc in engineering at the University of Cape Town after receiving a special award from the office of the Eastern Cape Education MEC to study at the university of his choice in 2008.
He has since decided to continue this degree via correspondence through the University of South Africa.
"Our teachers and parents tend to think when you passed maths and science one should automatically choose them at a tertiary level," Mangcangaza said.
Another former Nyaluza pupil, Nomvo Makata, says learners who seem to do well in maths and science are automatically encouraged continue these subjects at varsity, without all their talents and passions being taken into account.
She started studying a BSc at Rhodes, but has also since dropped out. "We can't undermine the vacuum between universities and high school," said Nombulelo Secondary deputy principal Xolani Jonono, "especially when the culture is not the same."
Jonono blamed what he called a curriculum that has been watered down, which undermines the abilities of pupils. "We have learners who do maths just to get to university and do economics, and we have those learners who want to be engineers," he explained. "Teaching them the same maths is watering down their standard."
Nombulelo Gwata, a physical science teacher at TEM Mrwetyana Secondary, believes there are many factors contributing to pupils' failure to adjust to university standards.
One is that her subject consists of a combination of both physics and chemistry. "One teacher might have a soft spot for either of the two areas and ignore the other," she said, "that becomes a problem."
TEM Mrwetyana maths teacher May Moya agrees that township schools can't always prepare pupils for university-level maths, nor can they offer the necessary career guidance.
According to Sanele Ntshingana, also a former Nyaluza pupil, this is rooted in the education system's dismal failure to prepare previously disadvantaged schools to handle university standards.
"I think we (pupils) don't adapt very quick to such standards," he said. "Few of us are fortunate enough to get extra help and advice as to how to carry ourselves and find autonomy at a university level."
Mangcangaza says parents and teachers should motivate young people to choose careers that they're are passionate about. "And that should not be determined by what subjects we did in high school," he added.
Moya insists that teachers don't tell learners what to choose, but rather guide and advise them. "But the final decision is between them and their parents."
