South Africa’s standing in the world of science and technology at high school level is not usually a topic that instils a great deal of confidence.
When South Africa last wrote the Trends in International Mathematics and Science study in 2003 (we did not participate in 2007 and the next study is this year) South Africa ranked last — at grade 8 level — out of the 45 countries that participated.
However, speaking to the nine young South Africans that attended the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Los Angeles last month you would come away with a distinctly different view of South African students’ ability to compete on the global stage.
The fair, which is held annually in the US, brings together around 1600 high school students from across the globe to compete for a multitude of prizes and scholarships. These students are selected from individual science fairs that are held across the US and internationally the preceding year.
Although the largest proportion of entrants came from the US — ISEF acts as the US national Science Fair finals — competitors from as far afield as Thailand, China, Ukraine and Brazil all competed for top prizes in 17 categories. “In South Africa the candidates are selected through the Eskom Expo for Young Scientists,” explained Priscilla Moodley, National Science Fair Director.
The expo is run at a school level and then selected projects advance to one of the 28 regional competitions held across the nine provinces. The top projects at the regional competitions are then selected to compete at the National Expo for Young Scientists held in Johannesburg.
The best projects at the national competition are then chosen to compete at ISEF in the US, as well as in other international competitions. A casual observation of the competitors selected to compete at ISEF 2011 would indicate that the majority of the projects came from students at private schools, with Bishops Diocesan College in Cape Town sending two projects, and St John’s in Johannesburg, Southdowns College in Pretoria and St Dominic’s Academy in Newcastle all contributing one project to the South African contingent.
The final three competitors came from Hoerskool Waterkloof in Pretoria, Hoerskool Nelspruit and Duineveld High in Upington. Pillay explains that the breakdown of the contingent is largely a result of the higher level of resources and better teachers that these schools have access to. This is not something that the organisers of the expo are taking lying down.
”Over the past 10 years we have made a consistent effort to increase the number of projects coming from rural, black schools,” she said. “We have increased the number of these schools that are participating in the expo from 69 in 2005 to 98 in 2009.” This made up almost 10% of the participating schools in 2009.
The expo has also implemented a quota system for national finalists, where 50% of the national finalists are required to come from rural schools. This policy did not reportedly sit well with some of the schools that had traditionally competed in the competition, with the total number of schools dropping from more than 1400 in 2005 to 780 in 2006 (when the policy was implemented).
However, she says that the policy is paying off as the quality of the projects that are coming out of the rural schools is continuing to improve. “There is still a real challenge in that there are simply not enough maths and science teachers in our schools and in order for expo to succeed we need a strong champion in each school to motivate the learners to participate,” she said.
Professor Ian Jandrell, Vice-Chairperson of the Board of Directors and Head of the School of Electrical and Information engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand, as well as the first South African to act as a judge at ISEF, added that the lack of facilities at many of the less privileged schools was a real problem in advancing the state of science education in South Africa.
“Even some of the schools that are supposedly meant to be flagships for science and maths education in SA don’t have proper lab facilities,” he said. The other factor that is hampering the expo’s efforts to reach more schools is a simple lack of funds.
Although Eskom is on board as the largest sponsor and Intel, the University of Pretoria, Armscor and the Department of Science and Technology contribute the number of schools it can reach and the number of people it can bring to the national finals are all constrained by the amount of funds the expo has. Even with the limited reach — there are 25000 schools in SA and only 1000 participate in the expo — South African contestants have traditionally done well at international competitions.
This year only two of the projects won awards, with Danielle Boer from St Dominic’s Academy in Newcastle winning a $15 000 per year scholarship to the Illinois institute of Psychology and Alessio Giuricich from Bishops in Cape Town winning a special award in the Behavioural Sciences subcategory and picking up a second place in the grand awards.
Ben Kelly attended ISEF as a guest of Intel