Investigating the significance of the 2008 Matric curriculum on first-year Economics performance
Abstract
The academic success of first-year Economics students has been the focus
of many South African studies in Economic Education. Many used the last
school examination (Matric) results as a proxy for students’ academic ability.
In 2008 a new Matric curriculum was introduced. Given various changes
in the curriculum, the question arises as to whether Matric results are still
significant in explaining academic performance, and whether the matriculants
from the 2008 curriculum perform differently. Factors such as the students’
time spent on studying outside lectures, their work status, and the impact of
using an English textbook on the performance of non-English speakers are
also investigated. A two-step Heckman model is applied to investigate the
performance of Economics students at the University of the Western Cape,
South Africa. The main results are that students who matriculated under
the new curriculum, worked part-time, spent less time studying, and are not
English-speaking perform worse.