Representatives from the South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited (Sanral) attended the 14th annual Family Math Summit held at the University of the Free State this past week.
According to SANRAL, the agency outlined ways in which it continues to support teacher development throughout the country, while also supporting learners and their parents.
The summit, attended by about 300 teachers and representatives of the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and the university, unpacked “long-term solutions and interventions required in the challenges facing mathematics teaching and learning in South Africa during the primary learning phases”.
Sanral CEO, Reginald Demana, mentioned that Sanral continues to support the development of teachers. “The Science-for-the-Future (S4F) unit from the Faculty of Education at the University of the Free State (UFS), in collaboration with several funders, are working towards strategies to demystify mathematics in the early school years.”
A statement by Sanral further mentioned that the partnership with UFS ultimately expanded to six universities all over the country.
“The universities collaboration initiative not only allowed for new learning hubs to reach more teachers, learners and parents but also serves as a platform for knowledge and experience gained over the past few years to be shared between institutions to build further capacity and upskill more facilitators/lecturers and communities.”
The head of the Family Math Family Science programme at UFS, Professor Cobus van Breda, mentioned the importance of the role parents play in their children’s schooling.
“Parents play a crucial role in maths and science education and through this Family Maths programme, we are successfully demystifying maths and changing attitudes towards maths. The learner whose parents are actively involved in their learning achieves better results. This argument has been substantiated with evidence through research,” said Van Breda.
Sanral’s Themba Mhambi further highlighted the importance of education as a way to rescue South Africa from its social ills.
“We live in a country or society that has become dysfunctional in many ways, with social ills, crime and extortion. The only hope lies in education and the only hope lies in teachers. Priests as teachers, parents as teachers, teachers as teachers, lecturers as teachers. Our hope finally lies in how the parents, the teachers and learners come together as a community because where the parents and learners are, you will not have the child become an alcoholic. Where the teacher is present in the life of the learner, you are minimising the prospect of these young people losing their way. It could become a template for how our education system should be reconstructed,” concluded Mhambi.
Compiled by Gypseenia Lion
