Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management (ETDs)
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Item Establishing mathematics teaching and training institutes in South Africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2020) Mashile, Mahlogonolo; Oba, PiusThis business venture proposal presents an idea that seeks to scale up an existing entrepreneurial idea that provides mathematics tutoring services and proposes the establishment of mathematics teaching and training institutes in South Africa. The business falls under the private tutor industry, which has a growing market size and an opportunity for the business to gain a significant share. The services offered will be mathematics teaching to high school students and training to both existing and new mathematics teachers (those who are entering the field of education). The project initially reviews literature to gain deep knowledge and understanding of the challenges experienced in the mathematics education of South Africa, and to acquire enabling data for managing a business of this nature. This enables us to design a business that will yield considerable profits and be sustained. South Africa produces poor mathematics results annually, which is very concerning for multiple stakeholders that depend on good performance in the subject. The government has used several strategies aimed at improving mathematics results in South Africa, but there has not been any improvement realised. This is very concerning for a country whose future depends on the success in technical subjects like mathematics. Studies conducted on mathematics performance indicated that South African students and teachers perform very poorly when compared to their peers in other countries (McCarthy & Oliphant, 2013). This project used the qualitative research method to gather data from the field to assist in understanding the market, its appetite and opportunities available. Data was collected from three provinces in South Africa: Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Gauteng. The results showed a low pass rate in mathematics, particularly in lower quintile schools, which constitute the highest number of schools and students in the country. Lower quintile areas are an untapped market because most mathematics tutoring services are based in big cities where the affordability is higher. The business will have partnerships with organisations that have corporate social responsibility to serve this market, while also serving the high- income market that pays tuition fees. The results from the survey conducted indicated an acknowledged gap in mathematics teaching. Most respondents noted that their students perform poorly in the subject, which they attributed to lack of student commitment and lack of workshops addressing challenging topics, among others. Over 92% of the respondents recommended consistent training for mathematics teachers. Several marketing strategies will be employed to introduce the mathematics services to our target market, grow the market share and increase the brand awareness. These include advertising on social media platforms, billboards and promotions. The business plans to establish institutions in Gauteng and Mpumalanga in the initial stages, and work towards increasing enrolments year on year. The business is expected to make a net profit of R2.6 million in year one, R5.8 million in year two and R7.5 million in year three. The business will be expanding into other provinces after the initial three years and work towards establishing mathematics, science and technology institutions in the futureItem Perceived returns to mathematics and student achievement: the South African case(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Gamieldien, Mohamed Faarez; Casale, DanielaThis study investigates the relationship between students’ perceived returns to mathematics – the future benefits a student believes they will obtain from studying mathematics – and mathematics achievement in South Africa. The study expands the scarce literature on the role of non-cognitive skills (and specifically extrinsic motivation) in education in South Africa. The 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) South Africa dataset was used to perform Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Instrumental Variable (IV), and Fixed Effects (FE) estimations of the model. The study finds that perceived returns to mathematics has a positive and statistically significant relationship with mathematics achievement. Further, it was found that the positive relationship that intrinsic motivation has with mathematics achievement is increased when perceived returns to mathematics is high, but that students with low intrinsic motivation for mathematics do not perform significantly differently when their perceived returns to mathematics is higher. This provides important insight into the interaction between different types of cognitive skills. Additionally, high perceived returns to mathematics had a large and significant positive relationship with mathematics achievement for students in rural schools, and the positive relationship between perceived returns to mathematics and mathematics achievement shrunk as one progressed to a more urban school location. This shows that perceived returns to mathematics matter more for students in challenging circumstances, but, importantly, the study finds that students with high perceived returns to mathematics in rural schools still perform worse than students with low perceived returns to mathematics in urban schools. This is an important finding in the South African context where gross inequalities in education persist: non-cognitive skills are important for educational achievement, but more needs to be done to improve the functionality of poor schools in South Africa