New ASSaf Report, “Scholarly Books: their production, use and evaluation in South Africa today”

A new ASSAf (Academy of Science of South Africa) report, released this month, argues that the Department of Higher Education and Training needs more urgently to encourage and support the writing and publishing of scholarly books, including how they are ‘weighted’ when the department calculates higher education institutions’ research output subsidies.

To read Sue Blaine’s article on the report in the Weekender newspaper Click
Here! 

The report titled Scholarly Books: their production, use and evaluation in South Africa today, can be downloaded from ASSAf’s site by Clicking Here! 

South Africa to get 2 new universities

“Two of South Africa’s provinces are to get new universities”, Mary Metcalfe, Director-General of the Department of Higher Education and Training said recently. These are Northern Cape and Mpumalanga which are the only two of nine provinces that do not have public universities.

“There is no plan or time frame (but there is) political commitment,” said Metcalfe. The two provinces also have national institutes of higher education and the government have been working on increasing their capacity.

The South African Parliament’s portfolio committee on higher education will start work on exploring the idea and will look at the practicalities, from the number of potential students and the type of programmes to be offered, to garnering a sense of what work the department had already done.
To read the full article by Sue Blaine in Business Day Click Here!

Inclusion of African History in curricula to fight xenophobia

South Africa has included the teaching of African history in the country’s education curricula as part of a new strategy to fight xenophobic attacks, which target mostly Africans living in the country, Basic Education Minister Angelina Motshekga said recently at a meeting of African Education Ministers in Mombasa, Kenya.

According to her the ministry of education had introduced teaching programmes, including manuals for teachers and learning materials for use in schools, to help learners understand the rights of refugees and other human rights issues.

The history and social science curricula have a greater focus on South Africa within the African continent.

To read more go to the Afrique en ligne article by Clicking Here!

Pan-African University to launch in February 2010

The Pan-African University, envisaged as a continental network of institutions training postgraduate students and promoting research, is set to open its doors in February 2010.  The Pan African University (PAU), supported by the African Union, will not construct a new higher education infrastructure – at least not for now – but will use existing universities as satellites across the continent to train masters and PhD students. It will eventually comprise a main campus linked to a network of five regional centres, chosen for their academic and research strength and the relevance of their work to Africa’s needs. The centres will be located in North, West, East, Central and Southern Africa. To read the rest of Munyaradzi Makoni’s article on University World News Click Here!

Enrolment and graduation of teachers in South Africa declining

A new book by Andrew Paterson and Fabian Arends titled “Teacher Graduate Production in South Africa”(HSRC Press) looks at the supply and demand of teachers within a national context that acknowledges an impending shortage of teachers. The book specifically focuses on the changing demography of education students at South African higher education institutions. It explores a broad overview of the enrolment, graduation and throughput characteristics of students registered for programmes in the education field, both in the Initial Professional Education and Training (IPET) and Continuing Professional Teacher Development (CPTD) fields – which apply to new students and qualified teachers, respectively. To read more on the Skills Portal Site Click Here!

Action against religion in South African schools?

School principals and education organisations in South Africa has reacted heavily to the plan of an organisation “Sceptic South Africa” to start monitoring South African schools that are practicing religion in schools. “Sceptic South Africa” plans to prosecute those schools that allow Bible reading and prayer during classes.

The organisation is headed up by Prof George Claasen, extraordinary professor at University of Stellenbosch. Prof Claasen is acting on behalf of a group of parents that are unhappy about the “illegal” practice of religion in schools. The first schools that will be targeted are “Laerskool Stellenbosch” and “Laerskool Louw Geldenhuys”

According to Prof Rassie Malherbe(University of Johannesburg), an expert on the South African constitution, the constitution does say that religion cannot be forced on anyone, but at the same time it also says that the absence of religion cannot be enforced.

“Government policy leave room for religion in schools”, Mr Jaco Deacon, national operational head of the Federation of School Governing Bodies of South Africa commented. “According to the constitutional framework a school can still be a Christian or Muslim school. The constitution only stipulates that one cannot oblige all students to take part in religious activities. People with different opinions must also not be excluded. Schools should foster understanding and tolerance, rather than enforcing a viewpoint.” 

According to Malherbe any matter regarding religion in schools will be subject to the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom. Constitutional Judge Arthur Chaskalson already found in the 1990s that the state should allow room for people to freely practice their beliefs.

To read the original article in Afrikaans in the Rapport Newspaper by Clicking Here!

What is transformation in Higher Education? Nzimande

Dr Blade Nzimande, Minister of Higher Education and Training addressed the issue of transformation of South African universities at the occasion of the University of the Free State public management memorial lecture, held on 3 September 2009. To read a transcript of his speech, published on PoliticsWeb Click Here!

University students in South Africa can’t read?

The recent publication in South Africa of the results of pilots of the new National Benchmark Tests – tests which measure the performance of school-leavers in three key areas and aim to predict whether or not they will have difficulty as they enter university – has brought a flurry of outrage from academics and politicians. They are reported as claiming that standards are dropping and students can’t read or write. While this sort of knee-jerk reaction to tests conducted at a national level is largely predictable, especially in a country where the school system still experiences huge problems, it is also questionable given research produced in the field of academic development – an area which has long concerned itself with the issue of student ‘under-preparedness’ at universities…….

To read the rest of this article by Chrissey Boughey on University World News Click Here!

Some Challenges Facing the South Africa Higher Education System

The South African Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande delivered a lecture on the Challenges facing South African Higher Education on 14 August 2009 at the 250th seminar of the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Humanities.

For a transcript of the lecture on PoliticsWeb Click Here!

Rise in SA university student drop-out-rate expected

South African vice-chancellors warned the government recently to expect more students to drop out following shocking results of  pilot national benchmark tests.

A draft report produced for the vice-chancellors’ association Higher Education South Africa (HESA) by the National Benchmark Tests Project shows that most first-year students could not adequately read, write or comprehend – and universities that conduct regular competency tests have reported a decline in standards.

HESA’s findings make it clear that South Africa’s school system, which is following the Outcomes Based Education System,  is continuing to fail its pupils and the country. This will place pressure on universities to do a lot more to tackle what appear to be growing proficiency gaps.

To read more go to Karen MacGregor’s article on University World News by Clicking Here!