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/ 21 April 2005

Two united against the world

A tin shack in the dusty forsakenness of a Freedom Park squatter camp, south of Johannesburg, is all that keeps Tshidi* (19) and her 11-year-old brother,Patrick*, from the streets. I arrive to interview her on a Friday and Tshidi and Patrick should be at school. Instead they are selling cigarettes to get a few rands […]

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/ 21 April 2005

Lessons in play with Creative Voices

Filling two and half hours a week with an innovative arts and culture programme is a lot to ask of many schools. This is what the Department of Education’s (DoE) Revised National Curriculum Statement calls for. However, a lack of teacher training in the field of arts and culture and inadequate resources have hamstrung many […]

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/ 21 April 2005

Better late than never

Grade 10 and 11 learners in Kwazulu-Natal may finally be able to open their new textbooks at the end of April. The textbooks make their arrival a whole term behind schedule because of a face-off between the provincial department of education and major book publishers at the beginning of the year. A group of three […]

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/ 20 April 2005

Left out of the loop

Preparations are gaining momentum in Johannesburg for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to be held next month but many Gauteng learners haven’t the first clue of what the fuss is all about. Learners interviewed by the Teacher had little or no knowledge about the WSSD and an even vaguer idea about what sustainable […]

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/ 20 April 2005

The roots of our future

Trees are closely interwoven with our heritage and history. The Kwa-Thema Indaba Tree, for instance, is the spot on the outskirts of Springs in Gauteng where elders met and negotiated the start of the township founded nearby. There’s also a tree stump near the Tugela River Mouth that marks the spot where the Anglo-Zulu war […]

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/ 20 April 2005

Ancient guardians

The existence of humans and trees is as intertwined as the gnarled roots of the thousand-year-old wild fig tree, a giant called the Wonderboom. Those who sit peacefully watching the hypnotic swaying of the kelp forests in Cape Town’s Two Oceans Aquarium or those who have watched the mist rise over the Knysna forest can […]

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/ 19 April 2005

A culture of learning and greening

Taking up the challenge to go green starts with something as simple as picking up after yourself. This has been the philosophy of the Ikaneng School in Diepsloot, Soweto, and the learners’ simple actions have snowballed into a solid commitment to make their school a shining example of environmental awareness. The school has incorporated a […]

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/ 19 April 2005

Trading languages

The snow-white double-storey buildings had to be some fancy office block – surely no one would allow children to use buildings of such architectural splendour for schooling. This was the first impression that Sibonelo Mvelase had of Pridwin Preparatory Boys School in upmarket Melrose Estate, Johannesburg, when he visited there in June. He was one […]

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/ 19 April 2005

Building a future is the point

Positioning Further Education and Training (FET) colleges to play a meaningful role in preparing students for a changed economic landscape continues to be a key challenge for the country. For the Central Johannesburg College (CJC), the first objective has been to create a unified identity among their four campuses in Parktown, Doornfontein, Alexandra and Riverlea. […]

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/ 19 April 2005

Where the music talks to you

World-renowned violinist Maxim Vengerov grew up as an only child in Novosibirsk in western Siberia. But he was never short of playmates because the orphanage that his mother, Larisa, established was always teeming with children. ‘I learnt from my mother how to work with children. My mother rescued many children who would otherwise have had […]

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/ 15 April 2005

Cracking the literacy nut

The debate on the best way to teach children to be literate still rages on. The phonics versus whole -language debate has been occupying educationalists since the 60s when the whole- language approach emerged as a new way to teach literacy. A dual approach to teaching literacy could however be the answer.

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/ 25 March 2005

Digging for nothing

As the deadline for mining conversion rights falls due at the end of April, the Department of Minerals and Energy finds itself with an unintended problem in the form of alluvial diamond diggers in Kimberley in the Northern Cape. The diggers say the government is strangling their livelihoods with mining reform initiatives that look good on paper but are out of touch with reality.

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/ 1 June 2004

Fighting the GM secrecy

Environmentalists tested the clout of the legal system last week, asking the courts to force genetic modification (GM) operators in the country to reveal more information about their practices. Biowatch took the Registrar of Genetic Resources with five other respondents to the Pretoria High Court, in a first-ever court challenge for access to information on GM activities.

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/ 12 May 2004

Environmentalists call for clean air Bill to have clout

It has been a long wait, 38 years to be exact, for the Air Quality Bill to rise from the ashes of the Air Pollution Protection Act of 1966. In February lobbyists ensured that the Bill was not rushed through Parliament until specific details were properly addressed. "We have waited so long for this Bill, we want to do this right," said Bobby Peek of the environmental justice group, groundWork.

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/ 25 February 2004

Tibet’s cry falls on deaf ears

When Lodi Gyari Rinpoche set foot on South African soil earlier this month as a delegate to the third World Conference on Democracy in Durban, he must have been struck by the historical parallels between this southern corner of Africa and his faraway spiritual home. This special envoy of the Dalai Lama believes South Africa has a moral responsibility to speak out against the situation in Tibet.

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/ 4 February 2004

Easy pickings

More red flags are going up over genetically modified (GM) foods flooding the African market without the necessary collective bio-safety precautions or technological capacity being in place. A genetically modified seed giant views developing countries as prime targets. South Africa is a net importer of wheat and had to import 1,2-million tonnes of the grain last year.

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/ 21 January 2004

GM giants pin hopes on Africa

African countries are coming under increasing pressure from international seed companies to embrace genetically modified (GM) foods, says South Africa’s anti-GM lobby. The promise that biotechnology may be the panacea for famine has been a convincing selling point on the continent.

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/ 9 December 2003

DNA testing a ‘disaster’

Millions of rands are spent on DNA- testing technology to boost local forensic capacity, but widespread botch-ups render impotent what should be one of South Africa’s most powerful crime-fighting tools. Despite being crucial for evidence in sexual offence cases, this branch of forensics is grossly misunderstood.

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/ 12 November 2003

New voices protest against nuclear plans

South Africa’s controversial plans to push forward with the construction of a new nuclear reactor continue to raise the ire of environmentalists across the country. But until recently the voices of protest were mostly those of the white middle classes. Now grassroots activism is being intensified to ensure that all communities are fully aware of the potential risks of nuclear energy.