The low status of teaching has caused student enrolments to plummet. THE status of teaching is at its lowest point in years. Redeployment and the confusion around Curriculum 2005 have done little to attract potential teachers. Instead, many suitable teaching candidates have been lured away by the private sector. Further tarnishing the image of teaching […]

Efforts to promote maths and science have not been wholly successful. AFTER the failure of a key initiative to improve maths and science performances, the search for the winning formula continues. In 1994, educationalists within the Mass Democratic Movement successfully lobbied the National Education Department to establish a project called Students and Youth into Science, […]

Nigel Bakker teaches English methodology at the University of Cape Town’s School of Education. and is editor of Maskew Miller Longman’s new Active Shakespeare series. He spoke to SEAN O’CONNOR about teaching Shakespeare. What are your favourite memories of teaching Shakespeare? I have one favourite memory that is repeated over and over, each time I […]

SEAN O’CONNOR reviews four annotated Shakespeare series designed specifically for schools, including Macmillan Communicative Shakespeare developed by the Institute for the Study of English in Africa, (Macmillan Boleswa, R 36,66), Cambridge School Shakespeare, series editor Rex Gibson (Cambridge University Press, R29,95 ), Active Shakespeare, senior editors Nigel Bakker and Anthony Parr (Maskew Miller Longman, R32,35 […]

SEAN O’CONNOR reviews Learners with Special Needs by Jennifer Gous and Lungelwa Mfazwe (Heinemann, R 36,50) SOUTH Africans continue to feel the effects of an inefficient, discriminatory system that ”catered” to learners with special educational needs (LSEN — a horrible acronym) under the former government. Many of us don’t have an adequate grasp of what […]

PARTICIPATION in today’s general strike by members of the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU), has been ”uneven”, according to Education Minister Kader Asmal’s spokesperson, Bheki Khumalo. According to preliminary figures supplied by Khumalo, 70% of all teachers in Gauteng were at school, whereas 80% of educators in Mpumalanga had responded to the call to […]

THOUSANDS of South African teachers are poised to heed Cosatu’s call to go on a 24-hour general strike tomorrow. South African Democratic Teacher’s Union (SADTU) media spokesperson Hassan Lorgat says his organisation is ”standing with the poor” by calling on its 220 000 members to join the strike. He said that SADTU members would be […]

The divide between the haves and the have-nots is as wide as ever, but many of the better-off schools are reaching out to help OUTREACH programmes are often perceived as one-way affairs, conducted by schools with a surplus. While some might argue that most outreach programmes don’t go far enough, maintaining a stereotypical relationship between […]

The safe schools program aims to reclaim schools from gangsters IN 1997, a standard 8 pupil named Howard McKenzie become the 20th victim of a bitter gang war in Gugulethu. Howard was shot dead at school, in his classroom. The school violence impacted heavily upon Eugene Daniels, circuit manager for Howard’s school at the time. […]

Important information gathering skills can be learnt outside school THE Valhalla Park public library near Elsies River in the Cape Flats serves an estimated 16 000 people. Like many libraries in disadvantaged areas, it is crammed with schoolchildren in the afternoons, ranging from the smallest grade ones to the largest and most threatening kind of […]