schooling

According to Jonathan Jansen, University of the Free State vice-chancellor, it is time to concede that government does not have the capacity or the courage to change our schools in vast parts of this country.

Jansen is of the view that universities should take over 50 of the worst-performing schools in their provinces, take the responsibility of on-site teacher training, of direct career counselling and subject choice decisions in Grades 10 and upwards.

Human Help Network Rwanda (HHN), a NGO that promotes sustainable human, social and economic development has handed over a six-classroom block it built in Karama Sector, Huye district.

With technical expertise from the partnership between Rhineland-Palatinate and Rwanda, HHN also constructed latrines and provided clean water to the over 1 400 pupils of the school.

The South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) says the demand for free education by students at higher education institutions is justifiable considering the high number of students who dropped out because they could not afford higher education.

SAIRR deputy CEO, Frans Cronje, says the students’ protests raised questions about how the government prioritised its programmes.

The Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) has announced that it will this year focus on pupil’s performances in schools.

MEC Barbara Creecy says that, “Our president and our premier have made it clear that by 2014 we need to ensure that learners leave primary schools able to read, write and achieve in basic mathematics.”
Creecy states that the province’s matric pass rate needs to improve, with a higher percentage of young people achieving a university entrance.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

SADTU welcomes Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s budget speech presented in Parliament this afternoon. We welcome the fact that education continues to be our government’s number one priority. The R165 billion given to education attests to this.

We note the following on matters of education:

The KwaZulu-Natal school which received a zero percent matric pass rate has had no principal since 2000 and has only six teachers -- three of whom were temporary, an education union said on Wednesday.

Zuzanawe High School in northern KwaZulu-Natal was one of the province’s four schools to receive a zero percent matric pass rate during the 2009 examinations.

A local teacher, Mmipe George Mokgehle, has proven that hard work is rewarding by scooping the prestigious African ICT Achiever’s Award at the weekend.

Mokgehle, who teaches at Toronto Primary School in Mankweng outside Polokwane, was awarded a certificate of excellence at a function at the Market Theatre in Newtown, Johannesburg.

The award is given in recognition of teachers who have contributed to improving information communication technology (ICT) skills among pupils. The contest was between teachers from all parts of the continent.

The Ermelo High School judgement is certainly one the most important in the history of the Constitutional Court. This well-argued and pedagogically sound judgment investigated several critical questions about the roles and functions of the education department and governing bodies in terms of determining language policy and consequently sets new parameters in terms of access, redress and accountability.