Boys Town is an organisation with over 40 years experience of caring for youngsters hellbent on bucking the system. Male schoolgoers with a history of behavioural problems are committed to their care by the courts, and it is there that they are given another chance to reach their potential. But in recognition of the widespread […]
For five years, says Sadtu, the provincial Department of Education has failed to pay cash bonuses, leave gratuities, salary adjustments, relocation costs, substitute teachers and new appointees. The total amount owed is R100-million. Sadtu’s provincial secretary Mxolisi Dimaza says payments have still not been received and that a request for an urgent meeting with Eastern […]
Tertiary institutions last month received government notice of drastic alterations to their teaching programmes that will kick in from next year. Historically disadvantaged institutions (HDIs) and technikons bear the main brunt of the changes, with consequences one prominent educationist considers potentially “more devastating than mergers”. The Ministry of Education’s Approved Academic Programmes for Universities and […]
Political tempers are rising as the Democratic Alliance (DA) adds its criticism against the Department of Education’s (DoE) proposed changes to education laws. The Education Amendment Bill was released for comment in May, and was under discussion in Parliament last month. The underlying implication of several of the proposed amendments, says DA education spokesperson in […]
An Mpumalanga teacher accused of torturing a learner has finally been dismissed and struck off the provincial teachers’ roll. In June the Teacher reported how Zandile Nkosi (42), a teacher at Tiga Primary School in Daantjie near Nelspruit, brutally tortured a learner with the help of her husband and two friends. The boy had been […]
Escalating violence between Israel and Palestine prompted a strong response from leaders of South African education last month. A message of solidarity to the people of Palestine was signed by Minister of Eduction Kader Asmal, his deputy Mosibudi Mangena, and other high-ranking officials, including seven of the provincial MECs. The two MECs who declined to […]
Schools in Tzaneen in Limpopo continue to struggle to make racial integration a reality. Black and white learners are taught in separate classrooms, use separate toilets, and black parents complain that their children are obliged to learn in Afrikaans at former white schools. During a visit to the town, the Teacher found that practices amounting […]
Millions of rands available for improving the plight of the country’s most disadvantaged schoolgoers remained unspent by the end of last year. At the same time, spending on adult basic education continued to shrivel – and will worsen in the next few years. Spending trends in the national Department of Education (DoE) and the provincial […]
‘Kyle didn’t stand a chance,” says Estelle Kunneke. Her 16-year-old son ran away from Ethokomala, a reform school in Kinross, Mpumalanga, on February 3. He has not been heard from since. More than a tale of one youngster’s mistakes, this is also a story of how he has been failed by all those tasked to […]
I am a teacher at a primary school in Umguza district in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland North province. My school is situated in the rural areas of the district, where most commercial farms were recently acquired by the government under the controversial, fast-tracked land reform programme. The school was built in 1982 after the government resettled people […]