SA government eyeing free tuition to boost skills shortages

In a recent cabinet lekgotla the South African government agreed on a number of resolutions to address skills shortages. The lekgotla noted the mismatch between the supply and demand of skills for specific educational categories in the light of the unemployment rate that is expanding.

Deputy Basic Education Minister Enver Surty gave feedback from the lekgotla. He stressed that the labour market is plagued by skills shortages that constrains the country’s economic growth potential. Keeping this in mind the lekotla resolved to take action on various key matters including:

• examining the possibility of covering the full cost of study for (poor) students in scarce skills areas in all years of study; 
• guarding against downgrading the social science programme provision;
• supporting post-graduate students through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) to develop a new generation of academics in addition to National Research Foundation initiatives;
• intensifying efforts to promote research and development in higher education institutions;
• seeing to it that students that have completed their studies pay back their loans so that other students can also be supported;
• giving urgent attention to the problem of accommodation in the higher education system (only 18.5 % of students are accommodated in university residences)
• ensuring that all infrastructure programmes are linked to skills training and workplace experiential learning;
• strengthening and repositioning Public Service Sector Seta (PSeta) to play a more effective role in skills training for public service
• seeing to it that all government departments pay skills levies, as required by law;
• expanding the intake of interns into the public service, municipalities and state-owned enterprises; and
• utilising training within the public service as largest single employer in the country.

This posting was based on a Sapa article published on Fin24 on 23 august. To read the original Sapa article Click Here!

SA’s Department of Basic Education reveals its ICT plans

South Africa’s Department of Basic Education is aiming to utilise technology as a developmental tool for teacher education as well as integrating it into the school curriculum, Mr Enver Surty, Deputy Minister of Basic Education said recently at a gala dinner in Cape Town, at the Microsoft Partners in Learning Worldwide Innovative Education Forum Awards.

Surty said that an inter-ministerial committee had met at the end of October to sign an agreement that binds the Minister of Basic Education, The Deputy Minister of Basic Education, MECs and the ministers of other departments in the achievement of certain goals. While there was a commitment to the provision of quality basic education, Information Communication Technology (ICT) was highlighted.

The commitment is that by 2015 every learner who has passed grade 3 will have had exposure to ICT.

Surty also referred to the undersea cables linking Africa to the world, and vice versa, and said “technology has been taken to the heart of Africa…”

Currently South Africa has about 26 000 schools, of which only 3  in 10 have access to technology and only 1 in 10 schools has access to the Internet, mainly through dial up connections. The government is trying to roll out the Teacher Laptop Initiative which provides teachers with a R130 subsidy per month towards the purchase of a laptop, but the use of technology in teaching methodology is yet to be formally incorporated into the teacher training curriculum.

Surty then referred to the Microsoft Partners in Learning Programme, through which the Department of Basic Education has received R93 million in free software via a national schools’ agreement. More than 25 000 teachers have been trained using the programme’s Teacher Training curriculum and the aim is to foster the development of 21st century skills among learners.

To read the original article by Primarashni Gower on Mail and Guardian Online Click Here!

National Education Evaluation and Development Unit Report

The South African National Department of Education published this report in April 2009. To read the Report, click here!

World Youth Report 2007

The World Youth Report 2007 has recently been published by Youth at the United Nations. The report examines the challenges and opportunities existing for the world’s roughly 1.2 billion young people between the ages of 15 and 24. Distinct from the 2003 and 2005 editions, it provides a regional overview summarizing the major youth development trends in the fifteen priority areas of the World Programme of Action for Youth. The report explores major issues of concern to youth development, including employment, education, health, poverty, and violence. It also highlights youth as a positive force for development and provides recommendations for supporting their essential contributions.

Chapters:

• Asian youth in the context of rapid globalization
• Latin American youth in an era of socio-economic and political change
• Overcoming the barriers of poverty: challenges for youth participation
  in sub-Saharan Africa
• Labour market participation among youth in the Middle East and North
  Africa and the special challenges faced by young women
• Tackling the poverty of opportunity in small island developing States
• Labour market challenges and new vulnerabilities for youth in economies
  in transition
• Opportunities for youth development in developed market economies: An
  unequal playing field
• Ensuring youth development around the world: The way forward
• Statistical Annex

World Youth Report 2007 Click Here to download!