Adult basic education and training or ABET helps to bridge the divide between Matric and the workplace
Despite being in possession of a National Senior Certificate, many Matriculants are functionally illiterate and struggle to perform processes that involve an understanding of basic maths. This impedes their productivity in the workplace. Companies are, therefore, partnering a leading accredited training provider of Adult Basic Education and Training or “ABET” to help them bridge the divide that exists between a High School education and the basic literacy and numeracy skills that they need to ensure efficient operations.
The process starts with a placement assessment to determine the extent of the skills shortages in a company and the exact adult literacy training and adult numeracy training interventions required to address them. The accredited training provider is then able to work towards raising the basic literacy and basic numeracy skills of employees according to a predetermined timeline.
Our placement assessments continue to reveal that many Matriculants are not functionally literate. Despite holding a National Senior Certificate, some employees’ basic English and maths skills are often below an adult education and training or “AET ” Level 4. To put this into perspective, an Adult Education and Training or “AET” Level 4 is equivalent to a Grade 9 school education. Once we understand your employees’ strengths and weaknesses, we can place them at a correct Adult Basic Education and Training or “ABET” Level, starting at pre-adult education and training or “AET” through to Level 4.
Placement assessments also assist us in determining whether your employees are ready for foundational learning competence or “FLC” as the next step in their learning journey. Moreover, it provides us with a sound indication as to how long it should take your employees to progress in their Adult Education and Training or “AET” to inform your workplace training programmes. By knowing where exactly to focus, Triple E Training’s placement assessments also enable Triple E Training, an accredited training provider, to better prepare its adult literacy training and adult numeracy training sessions to enhance the learning journey.
Functional literacy transcends merely being able to read or write words or work with numbers. People who are functionally literate are able to understand and use words and numbers for practical purposes, such as deliberating ideas and solving problems. These are fundamental skills that people need to perform at optimal levels in the workplace. Without basic English literacy skills, employees will make errors, as well as struggle to understand operating procedures and occupational health and safety protocol. They are also not as engaged in team environments and over reliant on their supervisors, placing unnecessary pressure on existing managerial resources.
Types of literacy
The various types of literacy required in society include:
- An ability to read and write: These are skills that are developed over time and must be practiced regularly. This is why people who do not speak English as a first language may struggle to communicate efficiently in the workplace and, therefore, require adult literacy training. Bear in mind that English is the official language of learning and teaching, as well as business. They are, therefore, expected to have a command of the language. People are, therefore, required to communicate in English in the workplace. Employees who have completed our adult literacy training programmes as part of our adult basic education and training or “ABET” offering are able to understand and communicate what they have read and express themselves efficiently in writing using English as a medium.
- Numerical literacy: This is an ability to use basic maths skills in everyday life and to solve problems that involve the use of numbers. In a workplace setting, numeracy skills are essential to, among others, understand charts, diagrams and data; inspect answers; and explain solutions. Numeracy can go largely undetected in the workplace because basic numbers skills are usually embedded in specific jobs, especially when they are of a technical nature. Adult basic education and training or “ABET” addresses this need through adult numeracy training. However, it is important to first identify numeracy skills gaps via placement assessments as an important first step of a well-planned adult numeracy training programme.
- Digital literacy: This is an ability to use technology to navigate various online forums and devices. They understand how this technology works and are able to creatively and inventively use it to solve problems. A common misnomer is that all young people have digital literacy skills. This is only the case if they have an ability to use digital technology in such a way that it helps them improve their lives. Employees who have completed our adult education and training or “AET” are able to use information and communications technology or “ICT” constructively in the workplace. Adult education and training or “AET”, including adult literacy training and adult numeracy training, is the first step taken towards becoming proficient in digital technologies. Attaining these skills is one of the main reasons companies invest heavily in adult education and training or “AET”. This is considering the rapid rate at which the economy is changing and relying heavily on sophisticated digital technology. Basic computer skills have, therefore, become mandatory in just about every workplace.
- Health literacy: This enables people to understand information relating to medication, as well as an ability to communicate with and request help from healthcare professionals. People who are health illiterate are at risk of taking incorrect medications and misunderstanding clear instructions from medical practitioners. They also tend to make uninformed and risky decisions regarding their lifestyles because they are unable to access important information that will help them to live healthier lives. Adult education and training or “AET” helps people to acquire the skills they need to access health-related information. This is a prime example of how the accredited training provider’s adult literacy training and adult numeracy training is benefiting people inside and outside the world of work.
- Financial literacy: Enhancing numeracy, this is an ability to understand and manage finances in an appropriate manner. People who possess this skill understand how finances work and apply this knowledge to improve their lives. They are able to plan for their financial future, as well as manage their personal funds and navigate financial systems and institutions. People who possess these skills are also able to make the best use of available financial resources. People who have completed adult basic education and training or “ABET” are also in a position where they are able to acquire information that will help them to improve their ability to manage their finances. People who do not have basic literacy and basic numeracy skills stand a greater chance of becoming destitute than people who are literate and understand finances.
- Media literacy: This is an ability to understand information that is disseminated via various media outlets. People who have completed our adult education and training or “AET” are also able to understand information that is disseminated via various media types to improve their lifestyles. This is yet another example of how adult literacy training and adult numeracy training is improving the lives of employees inside and outside the world of work.
- Cultural literacy: This is an ability to understand all of the subtle nuances involved with living or working in a particular society. It entails understanding the language, methods, assumptions and unstated ideas involved in behaviour and communication. Most people are only literate in their own culture. Cultural literacy helps effective communication with people of different societal backgrounds. This is a significant advantage in diverse South African workplaces at companies continue to transform creating inclusive environments.
ENGLISH LITERACY AND NUMERACY SKILLS CRISIS
Basic literacy training and basic numeracy training helps raise proficiencies in the workplace
The severe skills crisis with which companies continue to grapple is an indictment on the quality of our basic education system, especially in poor areas of the country that mainly serve indigenous South Africans who were marginalised by a previous dispensation. Almost 30 years into our democracy, we are still grappling with issues concerning inequalities in the South African education system.
Due to this lasting legacy, black South African children still suffer disproportionately from substandard schooling outcomes. For example, the country’s poorest schools, which mainly cater to black children, are the largest underperformers in the country’s basic education system. The pass rate in these schools was 62,5% against an overall pass rate of 72,5% in 2016. This is compared to the 90% of learners who passed Matric from quintile five schools. These are the country’s richest schools that are far removed from the many challenges that quintile one learning institutions face on a daily basis.
As a result of the poor state of school systems in these areas, many indigenous South Africans underperform in key subjects compared to other citizens. In 2016, for instance, only 28% of black learners achieved more than 40% in maths and only nine percent attained 60% or above in this important Matric subject. Conversely, 86% of white learners achieved over 40%for maths and over half of these learners passed the subject with 60% or more in their final year examinations.
The extent of the education challenge that the country faces is already evidenced at a primary school level where children start developing reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. These proficiencies include phonemic awareness, perception of print, vocabulary, spelling and reading comprehension. They are all crucial for building a solid literacy foundation that is developed in later years.
There are three early phases of literacy, namely:
- Print awareness. People first learn a few basic aspects about how books work. For example, they learn about letters and words and that these enable speech to be recorded. They learn how to turn pages from left to right. People build print awareness just by spending time with books – whether they are merely turning the pages, looking at pictures, or listening to others read aloud.
- Phonemic awareness. Before people learn to read, they need to be able to hear each sound in a spoken word. People generally start learning about letter sounds in early childhood development.
- Recognising letters. This usually begins with the alphabet. People then start learning the shapes of the letters, starting with those used in their name. Some people also start to write letters at the same time.
A BREAKDOWN IN LITERACY AND NUMERACY TRAINING
A dysfunctional school system deprives citizens of basic literacy and basic numeracy skills
It is a concern that during these early phases of their schooling,learners do not receive appropriate reading material and textbooks. A mere 29% of the poorest primary schools in the country have access to in-school and in-classroom libraries where they are able to acquire print awareness and nurture a passion for reading. In KwaZulu-Natal, only 45,4% of learners have their own reading textbooks and 50,1% have their own maths textbooks. Meanwhile, only 56,2% of pupils in the Eastern Cape have their own reading textbooks and 57,2% have their own maths workbooks. In Limpopo, 58,9% of pupils have their own reading textbooks and 62,4% have their own maths manuals.It is not surprising then that only 38% of South African children in Grade 3 can read for meaning and only 65% can add and subtract.
Worryingly, as many as 78% of South African Grade 4 learners fell below the lowest level of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study or “PIRLS” test in 2016with the country ranking last in the survey. This means that the learners who were assessed did not understand what they were reading. Countries volunteer for participation in PIRLS, which assesses reading comprehension of learners and monitors trends in countries’ literacy rates at five-year intervals. Learners write the test in English, the official language of learning and teaching that is used in Grades 1 through to 3 in their school. However, it must be noted that there was a slight improvement in the performance of learners who wrote the “PIRLS” test in Sesotho, isiNdebele, Xitsonga, Tshivenda and Sepedi, although it was off a very low base in 2011.
We also underperformed in the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality or “SACMEQ” survey, surpassed by poorer African countries such as Tanzania and Zimbabwe. SACMEQ is an international non-profit developmental organisation consisting of 16 Ministries of Education in southern and East Africa that collaborate to share experiences and expertise in developing the capacities of education planners. This is to enable them to apply scientific methods to monitor and evaluate the conditions of schooling and the quality of education in these two regions of the continent.
Grade 4 Benchmark attainment by province for PIRLS 2016
| Did Not Reach | Low Benchmark | Intermediate Benchmark | High Benchmark | Advanced Benchmark | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Limpopo | 90,8% | 9,2% | 1% | 0,1% | 0,0% |
| Eastern Cape | 84,6% | 15,4% | 4,6% | 0,8% | 0,1% |
| Mpumalanga | 82,9% | 17,1% | 4,4% | 0,7% | 0,1% |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 81,6% | 18,4% | 3,9% | 0,7% | 0,1% |
| Northern Cape | 80,6% | 19,4% | 6,5% | 0,9% | 0,1% |
| North West | 78,3% | 21,7% | 7,3% | 1,9% | 0,0% |
| Free State | 73,4% | 26,6% | 8,7% | 2% | 0,1% |
| Gauteng | 68,5% | 31,5% | 14,7% | 4,7% | 0,7% |
| Western Cape | 55,0% | 45,0% | 19,0% | 5,2% | 0,6% |
| South Africa | 77,9% | 22,1% | 7,5% | 1,9% | 0.2% |
[Source:] Centre for Evaluation and Assessment, Faculty of Education, University of Pretoria
The PIRLS Literacy Report of 2016 recommended the following interventions to raise literacy levels in South Africa:
- “Strengthen teaching of reading literacy and training of pedagogical content knowledge of teachers across all languages in the Foundation Phase and especially African languages.
- Increase the proportion of time spent on reading in Foundation and Intermediate phases in the curriculum, as well as encourage extra-mural reading and reading habits.
- Initiate Pre-primary Campaigns for parents and teachers and emphasise the importance of Early Literacy activities and training at a pre-primary level.
- Urgently reduce class sizes to policy stipulations and stop the “creep” that is occurring across all schools and provinces.
- Increase efforts to attract younger quality candidates into teaching to address attrition.
- Target interventions for high-risk populations including boys, learners living in remote rural areas, townships. Limpopo, the Eastern Cape and Northern Cape provinces need additional support.
- Provide and increase school resources such as school libraries and classroom libraries, especially in areas where performance is poor.
- Review interventions on information and communication technology or “ICT” provision in primary schools and increase effective and sustainable access to these technologies and use thereof in education.
- Intervention is needed to reduce teacher and learner absenteeism at primary schools.
- Increase and implement programmes addressing bullying at schools.
- Campaign for greater parental involvement in school and learner activities.”
RETHINKING BASIC LITERACY TRAINING
English training geared at developing functional literacy
Barring the overall quality of the country’s primary school system in areas of the country, experts also question the efficiency of the traditional approach that is still being used to teach students how to read and write English. The oratorical method is currently the preferred means of teaching young learners in many schools how to read and write English. It involves teaching learners how to read aloud and pronounce correctly, with very little or no emphasis on understanding the written word and making sense of it.Young learners are, therefore, not being taught how to read English for meaning. Despite attending classes, they are, therefore, not achieving literacy. Young learners need to be taught how to decode and understand text in its context, and not just reading as a “mechanical skill”.
As they do not have the basic literacy foundations in place, many learners will underperform in high school or, in extenuating circumstances, leave school prematurely. As many as 500 000 more children than the anticipated 200 000dropped out during the COVID-19 pandemic – such has been the impact of the various levels of lockdowns of schools on education in the country. This will only fuel the already high illiteracy rate in South Africa. The situation remains of serious concern to policymakers and captains of industry who are already grappling with a severe skills shortage. This is having a serious negative impact on the country’s economic prospects and its ability to compete at a global level. The skills shortage, thus, severely affects socioeconomic growth and development in the country.
Certainly, another measure of the success of our basic education system is its ability to prepare learners for top professions that are essential for the effective functioning of any country. Local Leading universities have all raised concerns about the quality of our high school system which is failing dismally in terms of developing a large pool of Matriculants from which they are able to source talent to train into professionals.
FAILING IN NUMERACY TRAINING
Matriculants struggle with maths in the workplace
This can also be attributed to the very poor performance of learners in maths. There is a direct and unique relationship between numeracy and literacy. Early literacy skills are intertwined with the acquisition of early numeracy skills. This is especially the case during the informal numeracy and numeral knowledge phases.
Since 2016, significantly less than 50% of matriculants wrote maths as a subject. Maths is also the consistently lowest performing of the 11 top subjects in Matric. Of the learners who write maths as a Matric subject, less than 40%pass with 40% and above. Bear in mind that the percentage pass is also low – consistently between 30% and 35%. This is opposed to 50% in most other countries.
While government claimed that the pass rate for the 2020 cohort was 76,2% – a drop of 5,1 percentage points compared to the 2019 matric pass rate of 81,3% – experts argue that it is actually much lower.
They believe that the correct Matric pass rate for 2020 was actually 44,1%. This is based on the comparison of the number of learners who enrolled in 2018, namely 997 872, to the 578 468 individuals who actually wrote and passed Matric in 2020. They say that this group of Matriculants started with 1 072 993 learners enrolled in 2009 as Grade 1s.
Worryingly, pass rates for very important subjects, namely accounting, maths and physical sciences, also declined by 10% in the 2020 Matric results.
If South Africa is going to succeed in addressing the poor quality of basic education and the consequent high levels of illiteracy and innumeracy, it is imperative that we, firstly, identify and acknowledge the many flaws in the system. It is counterproductive to try and hide the failures, considering the large impact that the dire situation is also having on the overall performance of the economy.
The poor quality of education manifest in the workplace through inefficiencies and lost productivity. Of the 4,4-million functionally-illiterate South African adults, about a third are below the age of 50. These people are of working age, yet they are unable to read and write or work with numbers.
These low skilled workers are also at risk of being sidelined as the economy continues to become more dependent upon advanced technologies that require very high levels of proficiencies. This will only fuel already rampant unemployment, which is currently standing at 46,6%.
QUALITY ADULT LITERACY AND NUMERACY TRAINING
Accredited training provider helps companies raise the English literacy and basic numbers skills of employees
Triple E Training is an accredited training provider, specialising in English literacy and numeracy training. The company has been specialising in adult literacy training and adult numeracy training for the past 30 years, servicing all sectors of the economy. They include mining, construction, manufacturing, transport logistics and services. Our adult education and training or “AET” programmes are being successfully deployed to instruct low skilled employees and unemployed people in basic English and numeracy as part of community training programmes.
Learn more about this accredited training provider’s quality adult literacy and adult numeracy training programmes. www.eee.co.za.
