South Africa sitting on a “social time bomb”

South Africa is sitting on a “social time bomb” with more than 3 million youths between the ages of 18 and 24 who don’t have jobs and don’t receive any education or training.  A recent report by the Centre for Higher Education and Transformation (CHET) titled  “Responding to the educational needs of post-school youth” indicates that this is not only an education problem , but part of a “socio-economic disaster”.

In 2007, 2.8 million of the approximately 6.7 million youths between 18 and 24 had no jobs or training. Only 35.3% of them attended educational institutions.

To read more go to Alet Rademeyer’s article on News 24 by Clicking Here!

To read the report Click Here!

Minister of Basic Education cracks the whip on Matric results

“The decline in the national matric pass rate of 62.5 % to 60.6 % is marginal but depressing”, the South African Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga recently said after the release of the 2009 matric results. According to her she is disappointed and has sleepless nights because the Department of Basic Education is not where is should be.

The 2009 pass rates for the respective provinces were as follows:

• Western Cape: 75.7%
• Gauteng: 71.8 %
• Free State: 69.4 %
• Northwest: 67.5 %
• Northern Cape: 61.3 %
• KwaZulu-Natal: 61.1 %
• Eastern Cape: 51 %
• Limpopo: 48.9 %
• Mpumalanga: 47.9%

She announced a sectoral blueprint plan that will be developed before the end of March 2010, to ensure a turn around of the education system, and to address ineffective education.

She said urgent steps are needed to improve the quality of education. Schools and teachers need more and better support and training, and better infrastructure and timely delivery of handbooks. Motshekga also suggested direct interventions in schools and the co-opting of experts that can help strenghten systems.

To read the original article written by Alet Rademeyer in Afrikaans in the Beeld Newspaper Click Here!

Higher Education in Africa to receive boost

South Africa, Ghana and Uganda stand to benefit from a US$30 million assistance over the next three years in a bid to strengthen higher education in Africa. The Carnegie Corporation of New York will foresee competitive training fellowships to academics and researchers throughout sub-Saharan Africa. According to Vartan Gregorian, Carnegie’s President, the grant will be channeled in IT for research, stocking of libraries and access to information and investing in next generations in Africa.

To read more go to Suleiman Mbatiah’s article on Newstime Africa, by Clicking Here!

Universities are failing South Africa, SETA head says

Half a million South African graduates are without jobs because they don’t have enough occupational experience according to a Ivor Blumenthal chief executive of the Service Seta (Sector Education and Training Authority). He  believes universities don’t offer enough on-the-job training for their graduates. To read more go to Nkosana Lekotjolo’s article in the Sunday Times newspaper article at http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/article204824.ece

“Teachers must return to old ways”

‘South Africa must return to tried and trusted teaching methods as Outcomes Based Education (OBE) has in many ways failed to provide pupils with essential skills, Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga said on Tuesday’. To read the article on News24, click here

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!