Do away with private and model C schools, Cosatu calls

Doing away with private schools forms part of the Congress of SA Trade Union’s social policy outlined in its Growth Path Towards Full Employment document launched this week.

“[There is an] urgent need to eliminate the three-tiered structure of the education system which features private institutions, model-C schools and ordinary public schools and to redistribute resources toward ordinary public schools in working class and poor communities,” Cosatu’s growth path document read.

Cosatu proposed an education system that will be equitable, will level the “playing field” for all pupils, and will promote human rights, decent work and a culture of learning and teaching.

Reaction to this proposal has been swift, with one News24 reader expressing her horror at such a suggestion: “to do away with model C and private schools is ridiculous. We should be aspiring to bring all schools up to model C standards – not bring all higher standards down to mud level”, she said.

To read more go to the Sapa article on Times Live by Clicking Here!

To read Cosatu’s Growth Path Towards Full Employment Click Here!

Blade Nzimande calls for expansion of access to tertiary education

Access to formal education and training institutions is constrained and needs to be expanded Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande said recently.

Enrolments at Further Education and Training (FET) colleges in particular needed to increase if South Africa was to come close to meeting the need for mid-level skills and the demand from youth for increased training opportunities

While mindful of the need to maintain and improve the quality of education and training boldness is needed in expanding enrolments, and thus opportunities, while not compromising quality, he said at the National Skills Summit in Pretoria, recently.

This speech follows on the heel of another speech  delivered by him at the FET college summit in Johannesburg, where he called for some amendments and additions in the curriculum of Further Education and Training (FET) colleges to absorb the country’s desolate youth into its workforce and address the high unemployment rate in South Africa.

To read more go to the Sapa article on Times Live by Clicking Here!

OR read the article by Loni Prinsloo in Creamer Media’s Engineering News by Clicking Here!

South African universities speak out on Protection of Information Bill

The Protection of Information Bill was detrimental to the core functioning of higher education, Higher Education South Africa (Hesa), a body representing 23 South African universities said recently.

“Access to information is the cornerstone not only to the functioning democracy but it is central to the enterprise of the university. Specifically, because of the negative way it might impact on Sections 32 – access to information – and 16 – freedom of speech – of the Constitution, the proposed Bill is potentially detrimental to the core functioning of higher education.”  The body said without access to information the process of knowledge generation would be hampered, and without freedom of speech, “academic freedoms would be placed in jeopardy”

To read more go to the Sapa article on Dispatch Online by Clicking Here!

Plans for workbooks in South African schools criticised

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga’s plan to spend R750m on workbooks for all primary school pupils in public schools was called into question recently by research that shows a workbook makes no more difference to educational performance than a textbook. The idea of giving children workbooks was first put forward by Ms Motshekga at the end of last year when she listed several changes to the school curriculum, but an initial promise to make workbooks available for the start of this school year was withdrawn when a R522m tender for 45-million pupil workbooks and parent guidelines for monitoring homework was recalled due to shoddy work.

“It is not workbooks that make the difference … (research shows) it is the presence of books that does,” JET Education Services senior researcher Nick Taylor said recently at a Pretoria workshop on what could be done to strengthen education in South Africa.

To read more go to Sue Blaine’s article “South Africa: research challenges plan to supply workbooks” in Business Day on allAfrica.com by Clicking Here!

OR read Alison Moody’s article “SOUTH AFRICA: Row over research into school books”  in University World News Africa Edition by Clicking Here!

Decline in South African PhD graduates a major problem

South Africa’s inability to produce enough doctoral graduates to build the ‘knowledge economy’ it aspires to, or simply to replace the existing cohort of academics in the higher education system, is a challenge widely acknowledged by government departments, their agencies and universities. But fixing the problem is a lot harder.

According to Professor Johann Mouton, director of the University of Stellenbosch’s Centre for Research on Science and Technology (CREST) which has conducted a five-part study on the PhD, part of the solution lies in making more money available to doctoral students to enable them to pursue their studies full-time.

Currently about 80% of South African doctoral students are part-time and generally take far longer to complete their degrees than their European or American counterparts.

Mouton identified a string of blockages to postgraduate study:  

• The low number of matric [school leaving examination] exemptions, and too few good passes in maths and science
• The problem of student poverty and debt. SA produces about 100,000 bachelor graduates a year, but the majority of those need to start working immediately to pay off debt

The number of potential researchers is whittled down at each level of the system. Out of about 22,000 honours students, those pursuing masters and doctorate degrees amount to only 10,000, of which just under 1,200 (1,182 in 2008) end up graduating with a PhD.

To read more go to Sharon Dell’s article in University World News Africa Edition by Clicking Here!