cycle and many indicators of success or signs of failure. we need to be broadening our definition of success to extend beyond just university degrees as an indicator and enabler of skills. of the experts who have made this point are mary metcalfe, mark orkin and jennie glennie. in a newspaper article earlier this year, succinctly titled “ our pass rate focus is too narrow ”, they outlined three critical additional indicators of success for education. the first is retention. in other words, are learners staying in school for a reasonable amount of time? this is not to say that all learners must, or will, finish 12 years of schooling. while this is unquestionably the ideal, the reality will always fall short. but how far does the reality fall short and for how many learners? any situation where significant numbers of learners are leaving the schools system at a point before which they have a fundamental and critical mass of skill, cannot consider itself successful. the second is quality. again, this is a self - evident and common sense indicator ; one that speaks of meaningful teaching and learning and reasonable proportions of good and excellent marks within a framework of high standards. access to education is of minimal benefit if the quality of that education is at best only marginally better than no education at all. the third additional indicator of success, over and above matric pass rates, is equity. when education provides social mobility across issues such as gender, race, income and / or geography, it can be judged to be successful. when a lack of equity entrenches, rather than transcends, social patterns, the opposite is clearly true. within this cycle of interdependence, and the debates around what successful education really looks like, quality maths skills are critical – both as ends in and of themselves as well as means to various ends. in the same article i referred to earlier, mary metcalfe and her coauthors called maths results “ the litmus test of system quality for the needs of a modern economy. ” and once again, the results of our litmus test are deeply troubling. while it is true that south africa ’ s maths pass rates have remained unchanged over the past few years, given that the number of candidates writing matric maths has declined, i. e. the denominator has decreased, basic maths tells us that the numerator must have decreased too for this ratio to have remained constant.

, money is created by banking institutions through their lending and investment operations. the control over the money supply therefore becomes more difficult, and the central bank can only indirectly influence money creation with instruments such as interest rate variations, overall liquidity management, open market operations, and money market interventions. with the current liberalisation of financial markets and the tendency for an integration of financial services in gigantic multi - functional and multi - national financial conglomerates, the task to protect the value of the currency, that is, to keep inflation low, has become more difficult. the debate in the world of central banking about the introduction of e - money at this stage is therefore not only about the effects it might have on the use of, and the demand for, bank notes and coin, but also how it will change the role of monetary policy. will it still be possible, for example, to maintain control over the creation of money and the total money supply? how will it affect the spending habits of people? how will it influence cross - border trade and the balances of payments between countries? how will it change the velocity of circulation of money, and the savings of the community? 4. central banking in the 21st century with changes in the concept of money and the use of coins and bank notes, and with the introduction of electronic money, satellite communication and financial globalisation, central banks and the modus operandi of monetary policy will also have to change to adapt to the new environment. it will no longer be sufficient to define money - creating institutions ( banks ), and to manage the defined monetary liabilities of these institutions in our efforts to protect the value of the currency. the effective definition of money as a means of payment changed over the centuries from objects of value ( gold and silver ), to fiduciary issues ( bank notes and coin ), and then to deposit - money created by banking institutions. to this will now be added e - money and payments made through electronically operated global systems ( the internet ). central banks will have to adjust their monetary policies to affect, most probably through indirect market - based measures, these new methods of payment and the creation of additional purchasing power. central banks will have to operate more on a universal basis, as the banks and the suppliers of conventional and new money instruments will operate globally and beyond the borders of any individual nation - state. central bankers of the world will be forced by circumstances to work more closely together, not only in the control over banking and other