Millions of learners will be encouraged to take part in one of the most ambitious projects aimed at obtaining data on children in South Africa.
Driven by Statistics South Africa (SSA) in collaboration with the Department of Education, CensusAtSchool will target learners from grades 3 to 12.
SSA aims to get basic information from learners that would be used in a national and international database which teachers and pupils could use in a variety of learning areas.
Two questionaires will be distributed to schools, one for learners in grade three and 7 and the other for pupils in grades 8 to 12.
The questions will try to obtain data about learners, their households and school life. Some of the questions are similar to those that will be posed to adults in the 2001 census that will take place in October.
The questions aim to paint a picture of the learner, determine the date and place of birth, height, feet size; and also gauge the type of household the pupil lives in, whether it has running water, television and radio, the learner’s favourite sport, distance from school and time it took to get to school.
SSA spokesperson Ashwell Jenneker says the project aims to: involve learners in collecting information about themselves; enhance learners’ ability to handle the data, provide data for teachers and learners to use in their schoolwork across the curriculum; and raise awareness of South Africa’s population and housing census.
“The learners will be involved in the collection of data for the largest national database about school learners ever constructed,” he adds.
Reinhardt Cordier of SSA says data from the CensusAtSchool will provide information on Curriculum 2005 and enable learners and teachers to benefit in the long-term.
“We want to increase the whole of South Africa’s statistical literacy, and be able to make informed decisions based on the data. We also hope it would have a positive effect on the economy in the long-term,” Cordier says.
– The Teacher/M&G Media, Johannesburg, September 2001.