Ufrieda Ho

Kooky, off-the-wall, downright crazy — home schoolers have been labelled this and worse. Yet they say there is method behind their “madness”. Some even believe that their model is the future model for education globally. There are about 50 000 registered learners in South Africa who receive a home education.

Nobody messes with Jacqui Taylor’s girls! Taylor is a feisty Rosettenville, Johannesburg mother of three and will not stand for her children receiving second best when they’ve put in the graft. She explains that this is what pushed her towards home schooling.

Ten years after the dawn of democracy, a new survey of Grade 6 learning has shown that we have not overcome the legacy of decades of neglect and discrimination. Although the schools are now part of a non-racial system the evaluation reveals that five out of 10 schoolchildren are not achieving the expected learning outcomes in natural sciences.

More and more of South Africa’s museums, galleries and even zoos have ditched their dusty personas and become vibrant, interactive institutions that are really worth a visit. The breath of fresh air blowing through these institutions is thanks largely to creative thinking in the world of curatorship.

In the same way that Neil Armstrong’s famous moon walk marked the 20th century in history, biotechnology will no doubt leave its signature on the 21st. Broadly speaking, biotechnology is the industrial use of living organisms or biological processes. Examples of biotechnology products are antibiotics and techniques such as those used in waste recycling.

News about the London bombings break at the same time J-Lo’s latest tantrum makes world headlines — welcome to the global village, courtesy of 24-hour media networks. Globalisation and the tools of 21st-century communication have turned journalism into a new animal and present different opportunities for working journalists.

It has been long time coming — but even now that it is here, the real work of implementing career-path mapping and incentive schemes for teachers is only just beginning. The R6,9-billion that was recently allocated for teachers’ salaries will be spent over three years. Of this, R2,7-billion will be used to settle backlogs in salary payments.

For 48 years Boys Town has worked to stamp out a reputation for itself as one of the country’s landmark institutions for the residential care for boys. In February, the Alpha Family Home for Girls opened its doors in Claremont, Cape Town, to its first intake of five girls. The home can now accommodate 10 girls.

They’ve been called nerds and goody-two-shoes, but they shrug off these snide remarks and make positive changes instead. They’re the junior city councillors who act as youth representatives in major cities across the country and are required to give of their free time for a one-year term. Grant Gardner of St Davids Marist Inanda, Kelly […]

The ability to read and write may be the traditional understanding of literacy, but new definitions are straining the limits of this narrow box. One of the agitators for change is Brian Street, professor of language in education from King’s College London in the United Kingdom. For Street, literacy is about the way we process […]

Under-resourced and flooded with applications for accreditation, the Higher Education Qualifications Council (HEQC) has its work cut out for it trying to weed out fly-by-night private higher education institutions (PHEIs). Based in Pretoria, the HEQC only has two permanent staff members who process the accreditation applications from all the PHEIs in South Africa. Four other […]

Teacher-training institutions are having to go the extra mile to attract young school leavers to the profession, and to entice practising teachers to update and develop their skills. And with the fast-changing sector they serve, it has also become imperative for them to ensure that student-teachers are given appropriate and flexible training that is adaptive […]

Holistic approaches to education are shedding their somewhat ‘new-age” tag and are being successfully incorporated into modern mainstream education systems. Willem van der Velden, administrative head of the Centre for Creative Education in Plumstead, Cape Town, says that the government’s outcome-based education system now reflects many of the principles central to the Waldorf Schools’ teaching […]

Most parents probably still let out a small whimper when told by their child that they intend to pursue a career in film, television or radio. This is mainly because the industry has suffered from a negative perception that there is limited career potential and that there are too few positions for the number of […]

If the Supreme Movie Maker were scouting around for a suitable location to film some of the finest fruits of His creation, Helderberg College would definitely make it onto His shortlist. Facing the towering Hottentot’s Holland mountain range which frames Somerset West, it’s a place that seems almost frozen in history. In 1893 Helderberg was […]

South Africa’s higher education pot is being stirred up with vigour and one of the newest things cooking is something that will emerge as the comprehensive institution. Comprehensive institutions are to be created through the merging of existing higher education facilities. They will offer both university- and technikon-type courses to students in a single institution. […]

Schools are increasingly under pressure to run as slick businesses in order to attract top-notch staff, operate according to good governance principles and, importantly, to stay in the red. This was one of the motivations behind the development of distance education institution, the Management College of Southern Africa (Mancosa), which opened its doors in Overport, […]

The disciplines of graphic, interior and fashion design are inherently rooted in the creative – but they need to be balanced with enough business and entrepreneurial savvy to be relevant in the context of a developing country. This, says Rick Edmonds, principal of Inscape Design Centre in Rosebank, Johannesburg, is the reason for the focus […]

Many assume that being trained in computers equals immediate job opportunities. But the slump in the Information Technology (IT) market that started with the non-event of Y2K and the global economic downturn that followed the 9/11 bombings in the United States have left the industry on shaky ground. The quick rise of dot.com and e-commerce […]

But schools that have been carrying out such tests believe it’s the most proactive way to tackle the problem of drug abuse and the results they’re seeing show that it works. Being forced to abandon testing as part of their drug and alcohol policies has come as a severe blow to these schools. Aurora Private […]

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 […]