– Spies snare cheats: Lithuania’s intelligence service has been called in to snag students trying to cheat on graduation exams. ‘Education Mnister Algirdas Monkevicius has requested the special investigation service and national police to report to him any cases identified of exam questions being sold,” the ministry said in a statement. The measure is aimed […]
My life is tilling the soil. I don’t need to read. The Bible? They tell us about that at Mass. The news? I listen to the radio. The newspaper costs the price of a kilo of salt for my kids,” says Godfroid Bimenyimana, a 57-year-old Rwandan farmer. Bimenyimana and millions like him have no desire […]
When his father became an alcoholic, fell into debt and was in no position to work, 11-year-old Veeramallu Kesaboina Biksham from India had to leave school to become a bonded labourer. Biksham is not an isolated case. Today there are more than 250-million working children aged five to 17 in the world, according to the […]
"I tend to treat the internet like just an extension of the real world, and I’m not alone in this approach. The net is just a virtual suburb of real time. It has its own main roads, corporate areas, civilian suburbs, secret ‘black project’ workshops, factories, military sections, news and data sources, entertainment areas, as well as assorted government webs," writes Ian Fraser this week.
Zeena Hussein (11) sits in an empty classroom at the Qairuran school in Kirkuk, Iraq. Teachers at the school said it has been open for days but only a handful of students have shown up for class. The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) director Carol Bellamy said ‘One of the best things you can do […]
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is set to become the first victim of a wave of retrenchments sweeping the economy. Affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the union has suffered a membership haemorrhage and leadership crisis. According to CWU spokesperson Mfanafuthi Sithebe the decline in membership is costing the union R1-million a month.
Unlike some newly developing countries, Mongolia is not burdened with a low literacy rate which could hamper its economic growth. In fact, at 87%, Mongolia can claim one of the highest literacy rates in the world. However, with the transition from a Russian soviet-dependent economy to a market-driven one, Mongolia’s education systems and its envied […]
The economic crisis in Zimbabwe could affect South Africa as the country’s major trading partner on the continent, the South African Reserve Bank cautioned on Thursday. "The continued economic meltdown in Zimbabwe may have wider economic implications," the Reserve Bank said.
Petrol, already topping a record R5 a litre in Gauteng and set to increase again next month, is widely seen as the main inflationary risk in South Africa today. However, a revision in the formula by which the fuel is calculated, could result in a small reduction in the fuel price, an economist says.
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 […]
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 […]
Barely three weeks after he was elected president of the South African Student Congress (Sasco), Siphiwe Zuma was tragically killed last month in a car accident. He was 23. Zuma, other members of Sasco and Julias Malema (Congress of South African Students president) were on their way to attend the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union […]
In its final submission to Minister of Education Kader Asmal, the Univen council has described the proposed merger with the two institutions as ‘flawed” and ‘defective”. It says the proposals, if implemented, would be disastrous for Limpopo province in that they do not take regional equity into account. The Univen council is chaired by Barney […]
Maryna de Lange, from Saldanha Bay Primary in the Western Cape and Steve Maditjane from Tsamma Secondary School in Klerksdorp, Gauteng, were the joint winners. The awards acknowledge teachers who make a difference in maths and science at disadvantaged schools. ‘I love both children and the subjects and once you pay attention to their emotional […]
The lucky winner of the cricket pitch in the Teacher/ Stumped Competition is Makopale 1 Secondary School in Limpopo province. About 400 learners will soon have the opportunity to play a sport they have to date only seen on television. ‘We have always wanted to introduce cricket,” says sports teacher Mahlare Masha. ‘We encouraged our […]
I was 14 years old when my dearest mother left me. It was the festive season, when many families get together and exchange gifts. For me this time was like a dark cloud. My mother was very sick and I didn’t know why she was so sick. My mother used to do many things for […]
Britain’s <i>Guardian</i> newspaper remarked this week that the election of Pope Benedict XVI "will clamp the cold hand of foreboding round the hearts of all who care about the developing world". Indeed. It was also a bitter disappointment for forward-looking Catholics who want their church to contribute to the material upliftment of the world’s hungry and disease-afflicted billions, rather than merely minister to their immortal souls.
The Child Care Act states that no medicine may be administered to any child under the age of 14 without a parent’s informed consent. The legal age of consent for sex is 16. But 12-year-old Lerato* from Kloofwaters Intermediate School near Rustenburg is one of about 10 girls injected with Nur-Isterate, a contraceptive that lasts […]
Get a free copy for your school of the basics of nuclear energy Eskom has compiled a CD containing the basic principles of nuclear energy internationally and in South Africa. If you would like to order a free copy of this CD for your school, send your name and postal address to: Annamarie Murray Eskom […]
It was a mixed picture of chaos and plain-sailing as schools reopened their doors this month. While education MECs like Ignatius Jacobs spoke with enthusiasm about the schools he and other dignitaries visited on the first day, many parents and learners had far less to cheer about. Thabo Mbeki Primary School (above and left) in […]
A photograph allegedly of Britain’s worst serial killer in the nude is up for grabs on internet auction site eBay, where it had attracted bids of up to £850 (about R10 000) by Tuesday. The picture shows family doctor Harold Shipman — also known as "Doctor Death" — lying down naked, claims the seller.
Insect experts are at odds over plans to name three newly discovered species of slime-mould beetle after United States President George Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. The guardians of animal nomenclature fear the slimy monikers may be a godsend for satirists, <i>New Scientist</i> reports.
While women make up 52,1% of the adult population and 41,3% of the working South African population, they make up only 19,8% of all executive managers, 10,7% of all directors and 6,2% of chief executive officers and board chairs in the country, a survey has shown.
Gert Domroch has lived in the Nama village of Kuboes in a remote corner of South Africa’s Northern Cape Province for all of his 75 years. From his backyard, the old man gestures with his pipe to the surrounding expanse of windswept desert against a backdrop of jagged volcanic mountains: "This is the land of our forefathers and we’ve been dispossessed." The land he is referring to is known as the Richtersveld.
I was delighted to see the space allocated to early childhood development (ECD) and some of the challenges facing the sector in your January edition. The front-page article, ‘Suffer, little children”, referred, however, to the issue of training for ECD practitioners and specifically the practitioners at the two pre-schools in the Free State visited by […]
When we initially estblished the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, it was to fight against the apartheid regime. That does not mean that we have now stopped fighting. We will continue to fight, even with the present Gauteng department of education (GDE) if it acts unjustly. Let us take a closer look at some recent […]
History was made in South Africa in January with the launch of a locally developed, first-of-its-kind solution to treat acid mine water drainage. Called the Rhodes BioSURE Process®, it was hailed as the most cost-effective biological treatment option currently known in the world aimed at reducing sulphates in acid-rich mine water without the external addition of chemicals.
Judaism, one of the world’s oldest living religions, refers to the religious culture of the Jewish people. It includes both a world view (beliefs) and a way of life (halacha) of which the Torah is the primary source. The Torah (which means teaching) is God’s revealed instructions to the Jewish people. It teaches Jews how […]
Since January 2001, a ministerial project committee, about 150 educationists representing all stakeholders and a team of administrative staff have been involved in the production of a National Curriculum Statement (NCS) for Grades R to 9 (General Education and Training). The NCS specifies learning outcomes and assessment standards for each learning area on a grade-by-grade […]
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, […]
When you look into the beaming face of any of the happy children at Tsoga O Itirele, a school for the mentally disabled, it’s difficult to understand why anyone would be afraid of them. Some of the children here were found wandering the street, dirty and half naked, because their parents didn’t know how to […]
Livhuwani Mutsharini insisted on being allowed to go to school, despite its being in deep rural Venda, Limpopo, with no facilities for disabled children. ‘We just have to live with the situation. It’s almost impossible to change,” says Edith Mikosi, principal of Mikosi Primary School in Gondeni village near Thohoyandou. The children use pit toilets, […]