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/ 24 January 2006

Flying stools

Leading American aircraft accident investigator Dr Norton Jungelson is once again in the news after an unruly passenger had to be restrained on a flight between Boston and Portland, Oregon. The passenger had been unable to gain access to any one of the aircraft’s six toilets, because these were being used by dozens of other passengers who had eaten an "out of date" flight meal.

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/ 24 January 2006

Mother knows best

Nobody messes with Jacqui Taylor’s girls! Taylor is a feisty Rosettenville, Johannesburg mother of three and will not stand for her children receiving second best when they’ve put in the graft. She explains that this is what pushed her towards home schooling.

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/ 24 January 2006

Tell no lies: Grade 6 evaluation

Ten years after the dawn of democracy, a new survey of Grade 6 learning has shown that we have not overcome the legacy of decades of neglect and discrimination. Although the schools are now part of a non-racial system the evaluation reveals that five out of 10 schoolchildren are not achieving the expected learning outcomes in natural sciences.

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/ 24 January 2006

Only pay for what you get

School governing bodies are currently engaged in setting fees for the academic year and presenting financial statements to the fee-paying school community. Or, more likely, the handful of parents who show up at these meetings. Some schools are more enterprising, inviting "supporters" to these meetings who will endorse the raise in fees without complaint.

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/ 24 January 2006

Method to the ‘madness’

Kooky, off-the-wall, downright crazy — home schoolers have been labelled this and worse. Yet they say there is method behind their “madness”. Some even believe that their model is the future model for education globally. There are about 50 000 registered learners in South Africa who receive a home education.

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/ 24 January 2006

Women for mayor: The way forward?

Of Gauteng’s 15 municipalities, only those led by women — Lesedi, Midvaal, Westonaria and the West Rand — received unqualified audit reports for 2003/04.
"It is encouraging that the four municipalities that have performed with regard to their finances are led by woman mayors," says Gauteng local government minister Qedani Dorothy Mahlangu.

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/ 24 January 2006

Muddling the message

Voluntary counselling and testing services are meant to help HIV-positive people cope with the disease, but some counsellors are doing more harm than good, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal. NGOs and Aids activists in the province say many HIV-positive patients could live longer lives if provided with better information about the virus and their treatment options.