David Macfarlane

Education’s stormy petrel Jonathan Jansen almost left South Africa this year. In an interview with the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> recently, he explained his motives and articulated his deep concerns about the country’s education system.

Government proposals for the revamping of further education and training (FET) colleges have run into a barrage of criticism that they "abdicate responsibility" and are out of kilter with broad state policy on skills acquisition. The FET Colleges Bill, ostensibly aims to streamline the colleges to meet South Africa’s chronic skills shortfalls more effectively than former technical colleges.

A pioneering study raises sharp questions about the ability of further education and training colleges to play the skills development role that government policy expects of them. However, the national Department of Education said recently it had devised new programmes for implementation next year that will revolutionise skills training in colleges.

As many university education faculties face financial meltdown, South Africa is training only about a third of new teachers needed to replace those leaving the school system each year, according to a government report. The report observes that there are about 350 000 state-employed teachers in public schools.

A national and international brouhaha has rapidly developed following the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s decision to bar renowned academic and activist Dr Ashwin Desai from seeking a position at the university. The decision has elicited letters of strong protest from Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein — among other well known figures from abroad.

A school curriculum for the few, not the many — that’s one of the most serious concerns teacher unions and educationists are voicing about the new further education and training curriculum for grades 10, 11 and 12. The curriculum is due to be implemented in grade 10 next year, leading in 2008 to a new school-leaving exam called the National Senior Certificate, which will replace matric.

A new look at Department of Education statistics suggests that from 1995 to 2001 a startling 40% of primary school children dropped out of school. The findings, by the University of Cape Town’s Professor Crain Soudien, are contained in a 10-year review of schooling conducted by the Centre for Education Policy Development for the South African Democratic Teachers Union.

Students at North-West University’s Mankwe campus toyi-toyied and burned tyres recently in protest against the university council’s apparent plan to relocate some of Mankwe’s academic courses to Mafikeng, about 200km away. But confusion reigns over exactly what the council intends for the black campus near Sun City.

Eight years after the Department of Education defined conditions of service for adult literacy teachers, they may be on the brink of receiving formal contracts. Criteria that formalise and improve work conditions for adult basic education and training (Abet) teachers have been agreed on.

The Mikro Primary School case has generated astonishing levels of noise and mud-slinging, ostensibly over language rights, in schools. Last week the Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the Cape High Court’s judgement in February that the Mikro school governing body had acted lawfully in arriving at its language policy — namely, instruction in Afrikaans.

The government urgently needs to clarify how the huge costs of tertiary mergers will be met, say the heads of the country’s universities and technikons. And they remain sceptical that mergers will achieve government education policy goals. If mergers currently on the table are implemented over a five-year period, they will cost R3,6-billion – close […]

Vista University is considering legal action against the minister of education – a move that could derail the massive national tertiary merger process due to take effect in three months. The Mail & Guardian, the sister publication of the Teacher, has copies of correspondence between Minister of Education Kader Asmal, acting Vista vice-chancellor Sipho Seepe […]

It used to be called the Cinderella of the education system. But South Africa’s Further Education and Training (FET) system is in the process of having its rags replaced with the finery of a new era. Since the passing of the FET Act in 1998, FET colleges have been positioned to provide a ladder of […]

The bride is thrilled; the groom is grim. But Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) will not leave Technikon Witwatersrand (TWR) standing at the altar when their union is solemnised on January 1 next year. ‘It is just a question of trying to make the best of a bad situation,” says Peter Alexander, a member of RAU’s […]

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 […]

At least 30% of senior management posts in provincial education department head offices are vacant, as are 40% of posts in regional, district and circuit offices. In schools, vacancies are at 20%. The Eastern Cape and the Western Cape are both without a head of department. These alarming staffing figures receive prominence in Minister of […]

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 […]

Racial representivity among teaching staff is lacking in most Gauteng public schools. And close to half of formerly whites-only schools have less than 20% black learner enrolment, probably because of language and fees policies at these schools. At the same time, deracialisation in schools is increasing – but not in former Department of Education and […]

The struggle for free, quality, basic education continues, despite the Cabinet’s endorsement this month of a comprehensive action plan to address cost-related barriers that still hinder full access to basic education. The action plan is the product of the government’s review of school education costs, which Minister of Education Kader Asmal released in March. ‘Sixty […]

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 […]

Premier Sibusiso Ndebele, provincial education minister Ina Cronje and Durban mayor Obed Mlaba plan to eliminate adult illiteracy in KwaZulu-Natal by March 7 2008. A task team has been established to present a plan of action to achieve this.

According to findings released by the Education Relations Council (ELRC) more than half the country’s teachers intend leaving the profession. The figures appear in a comprehensive study of teachers in public schools that the ELRC commissioned two years ago “following worrying anecdotal reports that indicated that educators seem to be leaving the education profession in large numbers.”

The Bloemfontein High Court has again ruled in favour of a northern Free State school that the provincial government wanted to close. This ends a two year struggle for the Bopasetjhaba Primary School’ who with the assistance of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies took the department of education to the Bloemfontein High Count in mid 2003.

According to a paper by University of KwaZulu-Natal academics Professor John Aitchison and Anne Harley, the government has been accused of misleading the public for 10 years about its progress in combating adult illiteracy.

The national government has been accused of misleading the public over a 10-year period about its progress in combating adult illiteracy. The astonishing litany of misrepresentation is set out in a paper by University of KwaZulu-Natal academics Professor John Aitchison and Anne Harley.

The doors of learning were slammed shut against many pupils in various parts of the country as schools re-opened last week and again this week. In many cases the lock-outs were illegal, some provincial officials said this week. Unions said work on the ground suggested illegal exclusions still affected thousands of children.

The absurd drama of matric continues. And the release of the results every festive season is an exceptionally long-running government production that by now rivals an Andrew Lloyd Webber blockbuster. For the next three years, the country as a whole — and thousands of pupils, teachers and parents in particular — will sweat through the matric endurance test.

They earn more than the president of South Africa, yet they depend almost entirely on public money for their income. Meet the new mega-earners of academe. Leading the pack is Professor Aaron Ndlovu, vice-chancellor (VC) of Mangosuthu Technikon, who last year earned just less than R3-million.

The bride-to-be is thrilled; the groom is grim. But Rand Afrikaans University will not leave Technikon Witwatersrand standing at the altar when their union is solemnised on January 1 next year. With another set of tertiary mergers due to take effect on January 1 2005, we resume our series of "Merger Migraines" by looking at the premarital nerves afflicting the most controversial of the upcoming unions.