New tracking system for South African school learners

The South Africa Department of Education has launched a new system aimed at tracking the movements of pupils from school to school. Called the Learner Unit Record Information and Tracking System (LURITS), the system will assign each pupil a unique tracking number that will remain with the pupil throughout his or her school career, giving school officials accurate learner enrollment data according to the South African Minister of Education Naledi Pandor.

The intention of the system is to collect the unit record data of each learner in the country from Grade R to Grade 12 and to track the movement of each learner from school to school throughout their school careers and to keep a history of each learner in the system. The system will also be able to identify individual learners who have left the system and will be able to compile accurate profiles of these learners.

To read more on the Learner Unit Record Information and Tracking System (LURITS) Click Here!

A Dress-code for South African teachers?

The South African Council for Educators (SACE) has called on schools to help formulate guidelines for a dress code for school teachers. Articles relating to the dress-code for teachers issue can be read by clicking on the links below:

Article in Bua News 30 Sep 2008 by Gabi Khumalo – Click Here!
Article in Mail and Guardian Newspaper 30 September 2008 – Click Here!
Article on www.iol.co.za  1 October 2008 by Fundile Majola – Click Here!
Article in The Mercury, 2 October 2008 by Ntokozo Mfuzi – Click Here!

Research in Africa on downward spiral

Wachira Kigotho recently wrote an article in The Standard Online Edition on the “Death of Research in Africa”. In this article he indicates that the scientific gap between Sub-Saharan African countries and the rest of the world is widening to unacceptable levels as a result of weak or total absence of research policies. He reiterrates that when these countries are measured in terms of published scientific papers and patent applications, most countries are experiencing a staggering collapse of scientific output and innovation. National scientific communities that flourished between 1970s and 1980s in Sub-Saharan Africa have floundered or become too small to function effectively. He lists the following possible reasons for the decline:

• erosion of academic oversight and direction
• paralysis because of budgetary shortfalls
• absence of career prospects
• high staff turnover
• large number of researchers emigrated or changed professions
• virtually no recruitment of scientists in the region throughout the 1990s
• wages paid to scientists in most African countries are no longer adequate to live on
• funding for science and research partnerships with universities and research institutes in other countries have declined
• vibrant scientific journals, many of them supported by university departments have disappeared and those that appear are so poorly edited that they have lost their reputed contributors or have been discarded by scientific databases, thus marginalising the scientific output of these countries

Exceptions are countries in Sub-Saharan Africa whose scientists are relatively active in agriculture and medicine.

To read the whole article Click Here!

Reward South African universities that are more productive

In an article in the Sunday Times of 21 September 2008, Adam Habib wrote that the formula for awarding money for research ought to encourage intervarsity competition. In his article he refers to Malegapuru Makgoba, vice-chancellor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s article “A better way to cut up the pie” ( Sunday Times, 7 September ), which brough to the fore the contentious issue of the funding of South Africa’s universities.  He lists this article as worthy of consideration by the Department of Education (DOE ), but criticizes its assumption that South Africa can only offer five globally competitive research institutions — the universities of Pretoria, Stellenbosch, Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal and the Witwatersrand.

To read the article by Adam Habib Click Here!
To read the article by Malegapuru Makgoba Click Here!