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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]