WEDNESDAY, 8.30AM
The education department has scaled down the launch of its ambitious “outcomes based” school curriculum, blaming staff and funding shortages for the delay. The new curriculum, which abandons learning by rote and external exams, will only be taught in grade one next year, with pilot programmes in grades two and seven at 270 selected schools around the country.
Education minister Sibusiso Bengu said problem areas included provincial departments that spent almost all their budgets on salaries, and therefore could not buy equipment; the “disruptive role of certain teacher organisations”; and the “serious lack of a culture of learning at some schools”.
TUESDAY, 1.30PM
EDUCATION Minister Sibusiso Bengu on Monday announced a new schools language policy which allows pupils to choose their preferred language of tuition while avoiding forcing schools to cater to more than one language group and moving away from compulsory study of black languages.
The potentially controversial new policy will allow single-language schools where there is insufficient demand for additional languages, however, schools will not be allowed to restrict admission on language grounds.
Bengu said he had resisted pressure to force students learning in English or Afrikaans to learn an African language, but added that they should be encouraged to do so. He said the policy is in line with a move to multilingualism as a global norm, especially in Africa. “As such, it assumes that the learning of two or more languages should be general practice and principle in our society.”