Visually impaired learners struggle to get training in vital life skills MINISTER of Education Kader Asmal’s recent calls for ”sensitivity and provision” for the needs of special learners has a way to go before it is met, if the current problems facing blind learners are anything to go by. There is much that sighted people […]

The youth run amok intent on dealing out their form of own justice. RECENT events once again demonstrate the youth’s conviction that mob action is the best way to express grievances and demand ”justice”. The past lives on: Numerous incidents of students running riot in the name of ”justice” suggest that this generation has more […]

Confusion reigns as an independent school forced to close goes to court ACTION by the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) to crack down on ”fly-by-night” independent schools operating illegally may open the GDE up to legal action. A Pretoria-based independent school, Way to Success Academy, late last month took the GDE to court for having […]

School governing bodies’ election year brings up fresh debate IT’S election year again, as the three years of service for those on school governing bodies (SGBs) comes to an end, and new representatives have to be voted in. Posters encouraging parents to become more involved in their children’s schools were in evidence at a conference […]

The Constitutional Court upholds the ban against corporal punishment THERE’S no more getting around it: corporal punishment has no more place in our schools, and educators are going to have to get serious about finding alternatives. This follows the Constitutional Court’s dismissal of an appeal by Christian Education of South Africa (Cesa) to have corporal […]

Over 200 000 learners have been effected by the floods in the Northern Province. THE schooling of hundreds of thousands of learners has been suspended because of the floods that have ravaged the Northern Province. Department representative Rapule Matsane says that four of the seven regions have reported the closure of 382 schools. The estimated […]

What the youth are saying about sex should make us sit up and listen YOUTH are speaking out candidly — perhaps for the first time — about what sex means to them. ‘I have watched S’cumto and it’s quite cool. We were given sex education at school where we learnt a lot of things we […]

LIKE a bolt out of the blue, what was once a stable, happening school in the affluent area of Bryanston in Gauteng suddenly became a hotbed of racial violence and controversy. Or was it so out of the blue? Some would argue the signs that all was not well at Bryanston High school had been […]

WHILE the worst of the cyclones and floods seems to have abated, schooling is still on hold in the Northern Province. Department representative Rapule Matsane says that the 382 schools previously reported closed will remain so, while a further 322 in the Ellis Rus area are also not presently functioning. This brings the number of […]

Learners at an Eastern Cape school held teachers hostage in an attempt to get money for their farewell party. IT’S nearing the matric farewell party season again and, in our particular South African fashion, it won’t simply involve the grade 12s finding an outfit and a partner. Mass action may precede the party at many […]