No new curriculum is yet in place for next year’s Grade 10 learners. Nor has there been any teacher training at this level, and no new textbooks and other support materials have been developed. Teacher unions and other educationists express bewilderment and frustration at the national Department of Education’s (DoE) paralysis on the matter. ‘The […]
The 15 kilometres they had to walk every day to get to school is a thing of the past, with the opening of Mngazi School last month. The 10-classroom building, which includes a 500-seater multipurpose hall, a workshop and an administrative block, was built with funding from Absa Foundation in response to a request made […]
‘The teachers love me, the children love me. Some of the children were worried they would get Aids from me, but some of the others told them Nkosi is a gentle little boy, he will not harm you.” These are the words of Nkosi Johnson when asked in a radio interview whether he liked school. […]
In fact, it’s a normal public school called Jules High School, located in the fairly run-down suburb of Jeppestown, east of Johannesburg. But these unusual facilities do make it a school with a difference: among the subjects offered here are hotel-keeping and catering, and tourism and travel. One of the educators responsible for teaching catering, […]
It takes just 10 minutes to bake a loaf of bread using tin foil and the energy from the sun. This was demonstrated by Debora Hammann and Claudette van Wyk, Grade 7 learners from Barberton Primary School. Their project, which showed the use of energy-efficient solar and biogas technologies through the use of scientific principles, […]
The Dinaledi project, which aims to boost pupils’ performance in maths and science, is finally showing signs of progress, almost 10 months after its launch in June last year. Dinaledi (seSotho for “stars”) is being piloted in 102 selected schools in the country. “The dedicated schools were chosen from under-resourced, well-performing schools and those with […]
Elsie Seletisha, a teacher at Batsogile Primary, loves the food garden at her school. A lot of time is taken up tending to the soil and growing crops. “We decided to allow people to use our school yard for a food-gardening project to try to get people who live around the school to keep an […]
The Education Rights Project (ERP), which will formally be launched in June, is being jointly driven by the Education Policy Unit (EPU) and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals), both based at University of the Witwatersrand. In an article in the February 2002 edition of the Teacher, it was reported that legal action against […]
Due to be released this month, the Department of Education (DoE) has developed a policy for dealing with drugs in schools. These guidelines are meant to help schools effectively prevent, manage and treat learners who abuse or are dependent on drugs. The policy is also meant to assist those who do not use drugs themselves, […]
Close to 200 people – from students, parents and teachers to community leaders – got together on a Saturday in May to transform the dump of a school into a vibrant centre of learning. They repaired windows, the roof and toilets, painted the woodwork and swept up piles of trash at Molatsane High School. The […]