More South African pupils to have access to free education

From 2011 more pupils in South African schools will have access to free education, the South African Department of Basic Education announced recently.

This has been welcomed by Naptosa, but it also warned, that the system would now have to focus on the quality of the education provided. This observation is crucial since the current roll-out of no-fee schools has drawn sharp criticism for its failure to properly resource such schools.

To read more go to Tebeogo Monama’s article in the Sowetan by Clicking Here!

New Curriculum for South African schools

South African Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga yesterday announced changes to the South African education system.

The new curriculum Schooling 2025 would replace the highly criticised outcomes based education (OBE) system introduced in 1998. However, OBE would not be completely scrapped but would be modified to improve the performance of school pupils.

The new Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement will replace the existing method, where assessment requirements were mapped onto the achievement of outcomes and assessment standards

To read Angie Motshekga’s full StatementClick Here!

To read more go to Sipho Masombuka and Tebogo Monama’s article in the Sowetan by Clicking Here!

To read more go to the SAPA article on News24 by Clicking Here!

The Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) documents can be accessed on the Dept of Basic Education’s website by Clicking Here!

Education summit to tackle challenges in Africa

On 11 July, the South African President, Jacob Zuma, will host a special education summit. The event will mark the culmination of the ‘1 Goal Education for All Campaign’ – a partnership between Fifa and civil society organisations across the world. The aim of the campaign: to get the 72-million kids of primary-school age currently denied an education into decent quality schooling by 2015.

To read more go to Bua News Online by Clicking Here!

Also read Kevin Watkins’ article on the summit in Mail & Guardian by Clicking Here!

Research endorses mother-tongue education

Internatonal research, including research done in Africa, continues to endorse the view that mother-tongue education is the way to go.

Language experts blame at least some of South Africa’s poor educational results, and its poor showing in international tests of reading and maths ability, on a lack of mother-tongue education, especially in primary school.

To read the rest of Sue Blaine’s article in Business Day on allAfrica.com Click Here!

South African pupils too old for school?

A recent national household survey on Access to education undertaken by Social Surveys Africa and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals) suggests that 10 % of pupils across all grades are three or more years outside the age-grade norm. Only 4% of children aged seven to 18 are not in school though.

This raises a question: if 96 % of our children are in school, why are our matric completion rates so dismal?  The survey showed that one of the reasons we have such high attendance rates for the ages seven to 18 is that learners take a long time to get through the schooling system. Just because you are in school at the age of 18 does not mean you are in grade 12.

To read more go to Sarah Meny-Gibert’ analysis in the Mail & Guardian by Clicking Here! 

To access the report of the Survey Click Here!