Reading Cathy Park’s first-person account of teaching life skills to teenage boys awaiting trail at Bosasa-Dyambu Youth Centre, outside Krugersdorp in Gauteng, is an uplifting experience. Inside Outside explores the idea of the search for freedom through Park’s personal philosophy of life. In the introduction to Inside Outside , Park acknowledges the reality of crime […]
Twelve schoolchildren from different areas of the country gathered in Cape Town recently for the launch of this glossy new book. The volume — comprising text and photographs by the 12 children — is the brainchild of compiler Han Lans of Amsterdam, and has a foreword by Nelson Mandela. The latter writes: ‘Whether they come […]
Often a visit to a museum can resemble the feeling of being in a space where you are not allowed to utter a sound — the feeling of being silenced. A visit to the National Cultural History Museum, will expose you to the true meaning of what a museum ought to be — an experience […]
The Gold of Africa Museum in Cape Town is a house of treasures that will dazzle your senses. It houses a collection of gold objects from West Africa and is dedicated to the art of the African goldsmith. The history of the African continent is shamefully new to most teachers and learners and this collection […]
What makes From Jo’burg to Jozi particularly interesting is that the perspectives of the 60 contributors are shaped by a wide variety of experiences. Among them are many journalists, writers and poets as well as architects and city planners, performers on stage and screen, artists and painters, political activists and traditional healers. They have all […]
This is a must-have reference book for South Africans and foreigners alike who wish to delve into the nuances and homebrew flavours of the local version of English. Described by the publishers as ‘the most substantial and comprehensive English dictionary available and one that is more up-to-date that any other local adult dictionary”, this version […]
If I was one of the matric Class of 2003, I reckon I’d be pretty peeved. There I am, pleased as punch with how well I’ve done to cross that mighty hurdle that everyone and their mum had said I had to cross since I was six, and suddenly there is a general public uproar […]
Assessing the Department of Education’s (DoE) performance this year is no straightforward business. One thing the DoE definitely gets a positive mark for, though, is its launches. With practised pomp and fanfare, it gets the message across very clearly that its newest project or body is significant. Three that stand out this year are the […]
The alleged incidents of rape in a primary school classroom in the township of Kagiso in Gauteng last month are so shocking that it’s an effort not to be left speechless by them. The story is this: the Grade 3 class had allegedly been left unsupervised for a week because their teacher was on study […]
The fuss and fanfare that the highstake matric exams attract from the public and education departments alike is quite hard to fathom. It’s as if we all agree to buy into the idea that the results really are a reflection of the health of our education system, despite the many sides that are masked by […]