TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTENT

PAGE

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................... 2 What contributes to poor educational standards and bad matriculation results.........2 METHODOLOGY........................................................................................................ 4 Qualitative (Gathering Insights).............................................................................4 Qualitative Phase (March 2012).............................................................................4 Conclusion................................................................................................................ 4 APPENDIX A............................................................................................................. 5 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS.........................................................................................5 Management...................................................................................................... 5 Educators........................................................................................................... 5 Parents............................................................................................................... 6 Learners............................................................................................................. 6

ASSIGNMENT 02 375758

UNIQUE NUMBER:

INTRODUCTION
Firstly, in my area most of the learners are coming from poor families. The kids come to school with empty stomachs and that reduces the level of their concentration in the classroom. Concentration and focus needs energy in the body, so the lack of energy or less energy leads learners to sleep in the classroom while the teacher is teaching or while other learners doing their work given. These children may be unwilling to interact with peers and/or adults in school in an effective manner. These issues not only have an impact on the learning of the child of poverty but can also impact the learning of other children (Leroy& Symes, 2001).

What contributes to poor educational standards and bad matriculation results

The rise in the number of children with poverty has contributed to making our classrooms to more diverse than ever before. These indeed make both teaching and learning more challenging. This issue can remain a challenge for teachers, as opposed to becoming a problem, if focus is placed on student learning as opposed to teaching. The social world of school operates by different rules or norms than the social world these children live in. Focus should be placed on finding a harmonious relationship between the cultural values of students and values emphasized in school. Considering that so many different cultures are represented in our society, we often encounter students who belong to more than one cultural group. They may be poor in addition to being non-English speaking or of an ethnic/racial/religious minority group (Bowman, 1994; Marlowe and Page, 1999). High-mobility is a symptom of poverty and its surrounding social factors. Children of poverty may live in places that rent by the week or even day. They may move from town to town as their parent searches for work or runs from problems (such as an abusive spouse, criminal record, financial responsibilities). They may live in homeless shelters or battered women's shelters that only allow brief stays. They may live on the streets. The conditions they live in and their day-to-day life experiences can have a significant effect on their education and achievement. Moving is a very emotional event for children. Combine this issue with the multitude of other issues faced by mobile and homeless children and the impact on their emotional, social and cognitive development can be overwhelming.

Poverty leads to other factors that also contributes to poor educational standards for example if there is no food on the table parents usually fight or ague everyday and children become disturbed and are automatically abused emotionally. They grow with anger and become disrespectfully to other people in the area and even at school. And that becomes a huge challenge to the educators because these kinds of learners are not disciplined and that put educators and other learners lives at risks. These kinds of learners are always armed and ready for the war because they have learned that from their own parents.

School attendance is often irregular. Transfer to a new school becomes the norm. Aside from the differences from the general school population due to other aspects of their poverty, mobility compounds the difficulty these children have making friends. They may behave hostilely or be totally withdrawn due to past attempts to make friends. With regard to both the academic and social aspects of school, they may figure, "Why bother? I'm just going to move again." They also often come to school with no records from their previous schools; and it may be difficult for schools to track the records down. Teachers have no idea what these students have learned. It is challenging for schools to place these children in classrooms and get them additional services they may need. Even if placement is successful, these children will likely move again within the school year. It is also challenging to help these students to learn at least something of value while they remain in our classrooms.

Teachers need to be tuned in to the culture of learners and be sensitive to the vast array of needs that children bring to the classroom. The social world of school operates by different rules or norms than the social world these children live in. Some children starts by disrespecting their parents at home and come to school with that tendency to disrespects adults and that leads to learners who are not discipline. Children comes from school to do too many tasks at home and that leads to tiredness and exhaustion at the end the learner will not be able to his/her homework and some of the parents do not even bother to motivate or encourage their learners to study at home. Insufficient resources at school affect both teaching and learning in the classroom. This research needs to be conducted in order to identify the source of the major failure in South Africa, for instance some of the educators are not fully trained for their job. And major trainings and workshops has to take place in schools especially for the educators on how to teach. Some educators completed their degrees in education but lacking interest in teaching they teach because they dont have a choice but they have to get their salaries at the end of the month. The lack of resources in the school hinders quality of teaching. These kinds of issues have to be taken into consideration and dealt with in a professional manner.

METHODOLOGY
Broadly speaking, there are two types of research methodology: qualitative and quantitative. We used qualitative methodology, and then employed analytical techniques and processes to review the data.

Qualitative (Gathering Insights)

This is typically a one-on-one process in which a researcher poses questions directly to an individual. The questions often ask not only for information and opinions but also allow the interviewer to probe the richness of emotions and motivations related to the topic. Researchers use qualitative data to help clarify hypotheses, beliefs, attitudes and motivations. Qualitative work is often a first step because it enables a researcher to fine-tune the language that will be used in quantitative tools.

Qualitative Phase (March 2012)

One-on-one interviews with sixty-eight Educators, learners, parents and the management of the school. We specifically recruited people in the mixed manner where the heads of department and the deputy principal is included. Our goal was to capture language and insights to help guide the development of our survey questionnaire. Interview duration: 30-45 minutes (Refer to Appendix A) Focused on fifteen topics. Topics included dysfunctional south African schools, less improvement in grade 12 pass rates, deterioration of educational standards and learners reading and writing abilities are far below the standard.

Conclusion
This project is bursting out the real facts or courses of dysfunctional south African schools and picking out the finer details of deterioration of educational standards

in south Africa. This project serves to point out those who contribute in declining the educational standards and at the same time encouraging those who are unenthusiastic or discouraged in improving the education standard and grade 12 pass rate in South Africa as well as making those unaware of killing the nation to be quite aware that they are destroying the whole nation. At the end this project will motivate the researcher (educator) to do the work at his/her level best in order to brighten the whole nation and to bring about change. The whole nation has to work hand in hand in improving the education standard, grade 12 pass rate and learners reading and writing skills.

APPENDIX A
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Management

Question 1: What is the course of low school performance standard? Answer: There are many issues involved for instance the issue of discipline in the school, parental involvement, poverty, unity among educators and management and resources. Question 2: What is the management input to improve the school performance standard? Answer: The management tried by all means to provide learners and educators material in need. Question 3:Did the management take that into considerations and have some means to encourage and motive learners? Answer: Yes, the school did invite the motivator last year to motivate learners.

Educators

Question 4: Are the educators motivated in doing their job well? Answer: Yes, but some are not. Question 5: If not, why? Answer: Learners in the school are not disciplined and the management is not doing a thing about that. Question 6: Are all educators trained to do their job? Answer: No Question 7: If not, why? Answer: some educators are doing their practical for the whole year in the school and that leads to learners failure. Question 8: Are the educators satisfied with their working resources (TSLM)? Answer: no Question 9: If not, did they inform the management about that problem? Answer: the management is informed Question 10: If yes, what did the management do to assist them?

Answer: nothing

Parents

Question 8: Are the parents aware or informed about their childrens performance in their studies? Answer: Yes, they are informed. Question 9: Are the parents involved in assisting their children in doing their work at home? Answer: Some and some are not. Question 10: Are the parents aware of the whole school performance? Answer: Some and some are not they are illiterate. Question 11: If yes, what did they do to find the problem? Answer: nothing

Learners Question 12: Are the learners motivated in working hard for their studies? Answer: The few are motivated but the rest is not. Question13: If not, why? Answer: There is no future for those who has already completed their matric. They are doing nothing after completing grade 12. And that is discouraging.