Filling two and half hours a week with an innovative arts and culture programme is a lot to ask of many schools. This is what the Department of Education’s (DoE) Revised National Curriculum Statement calls for. However, a lack of teacher training in the field of arts and culture and inadequate resources have hamstrung many […]

Grade 10 and 11 learners in Kwazulu-Natal may finally be able to open their new textbooks at the end of April. The textbooks make their arrival a whole term behind schedule because of a face-off between the provincial department of education and major book publishers at the beginning of the year. A group of three […]

But schools that have been carrying out such tests believe it’s the most proactive way to tackle the problem of drug abuse and the results they’re seeing show that it works. Being forced to abandon testing as part of their drug and alcohol policies has come as a severe blow to these schools. Aurora Private […]

Preparations are gaining momentum in Johannesburg for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to be held next month but many Gauteng learners haven’t the first clue of what the fuss is all about. Learners interviewed by the Teacher had little or no knowledge about the WSSD and an even vaguer idea about what sustainable […]

Trees are closely interwoven with our heritage and history. The Kwa-Thema Indaba Tree, for instance, is the spot on the outskirts of Springs in Gauteng where elders met and negotiated the start of the township founded nearby. There’s also a tree stump near the Tugela River Mouth that marks the spot where the Anglo-Zulu war […]

The existence of humans and trees is as intertwined as the gnarled roots of the thousand-year-old wild fig tree, a giant called the Wonderboom. Those who sit peacefully watching the hypnotic swaying of the kelp forests in Cape Town’s Two Oceans Aquarium or those who have watched the mist rise over the Knysna forest can […]

World-renowned violinist Maxim Vengerov grew up as an only child in Novosibirsk in western Siberia. But he was never short of playmates because the orphanage that his mother, Larisa, established was always teeming with children. ‘I learnt from my mother how to work with children. My mother rescued many children who would otherwise have had […]

Taking up the challenge to go green starts with something as simple as picking up after yourself. This has been the philosophy of the Ikaneng School in Diepsloot, Soweto, and the learners’ simple actions have snowballed into a solid commitment to make their school a shining example of environmental awareness. The school has incorporated a […]

The snow-white double-storey buildings had to be some fancy office block – surely no one would allow children to use buildings of such architectural splendour for schooling. This was the first impression that Sibonelo Mvelase had of Pridwin Preparatory Boys School in upmarket Melrose Estate, Johannesburg, when he visited there in June. He was one […]

Positioning Further Education and Training (FET) colleges to play a meaningful role in preparing students for a changed economic landscape continues to be a key challenge for the country. For the Central Johannesburg College (CJC), the first objective has been to create a unified identity among their four campuses in Parktown, Doornfontein, Alexandra and Riverlea. […]