EDUCATION - The African Mirror

Jun

29

2020

Maths teachers in South Africa: case study shows what’s missing

EDUCATION

JACQUES VERSTER Jacques Verster, Doctoral candidate Centre for International Teacher Education, Cape Peninsula University of Technology South African students are bad at maths compared to other countries. This is clear from results of South African learners in the International Mathematics and Science Study. The results show that South Africa’s performance is far from competitive in relation to other countries. To try and understand the reasons for this poor performance, I did a qualitative case study focusing on a year-long post graduate course taken by aspiring teachers. I focused particularly on a Post Graduate Certificate in Education with a maths focus…

Jun

26

2020

By The African Mirror

How to keep children learning at home. And you don’t need material resources

EDUCATION

ANDREA JUAN, Research Specialist, Human Sciences Research Council MOST of South Africa’s children have already lost three months of formal education due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The staggered reopening of schools means that some children will only return to school in August. Children whose parents or caregivers have been able to take on the role of educator may have been able to keep up with the curriculum. But the break-in schooling will have had the greatest impact on children who live in poverty – that’s the majority in the country. Typically, children from low-income homes lack access to resources…

Aug

02

2021

By The African Mirror

What South Africa needs to do to improve education for disabled children

EDUCATION

IN many countries, including South Africa, there is stark economic inequality between adults with disabilities and those without. One key to reducing these disparities is improving access to education for children with disabilities or difficulties. NICOLA DEGHAYE, PhD candidate in Economics, Stellenbosch University South Africa developed a White Paper on Inclusive Education in 2001, recognising disability as a factor that hinders learning and participation in schools. This policy emphasises that learners with disabilities or difficulties should be provided with the support they need, in their local school, wherever possible. This is in stark contrast to the situation before 2001 where…

Aug

01

2021

By The African Mirror

The heartbreak behind children leaving school

EDUCATION

ZANDILE BANGANI A young boy’s education is stopped when it has barely started, all because he’s from an impoverished family who hardly survived even before Covid-19 brought added burdens. Luyanda Khofu, 8, has been forced to drop out of school owing to his parents’ dire financial situation. His mother, Elizabeth Khofu, 29, has been unemployed for the past five years and his father, Mongezi Silwane, 32, lost his job as a panel beater at the start of the Covid-19 lockdown last year. Khofu says Luyanda constantly asks when he will return to school. “I tell him, ‘My child, I don’t have…

Jan

07

2021

By The African Mirror

From text to tablet: how to learn in a lockdown

EDUCATION

UMBERTO BACCHI AS a third lockdown traps millions of British schoolchildren at home, free tablets and televised lessons are being touted as alternative ways to learn in a lockdown. Globally, two in three school-age children lack internet at home, according to the United Nations, and ensuring equal access to education has become an acute challenge in the pandemic. With governments, charities and firms scrambling to get more people online or provide alternative learning sources, here are seven initiatives underway worldwide to boost remote learning: SOLAR RADIOS - Burkina Faso Burkina Faso began broadcasting lessons on radio, television and online after…

Jan

05

2021

By The African Mirror

Parents worry as crowded Kenyan schools reopen after coronavirus shutdown

EDUCATION

THOMAS MUKOYA HUNDREDS of children formed an orderly queue that snaked through Nairobi's biggest slum Kibera, waiting to enter classrooms for the first time since March, when the government closed schools after Kenya reported its first COVID-19 case. The country is the last in East Africa to fully reopen its schools. Children in grades four, eight and 12 returned to class in October so they could prepare for exams postponed amid the pandemic. The World Health Organization and the U.N. children's agency UNICEF say prolonged school closures due to COVID-19 present many risks for children in poor countries. Higher rates…

Jan

16

2021

By The African Mirror

As COVID-19 rages, S.A delays new school year until mid-Feb

EDUCATION

SOUTH Africa has delayed the start to its new school year by two weeks to February 15, in order to prevent schools becoming transmission centres for COVID-19, as new cases have hovered around 20,000 a day for the past week. School was out for about a third of last year when South Africa was in the grip of its first wave of coronavirus infections. The closures widened an already stark educational divide between elite schools that easily shifted classes online and the rest with little or no capacity for digital learning. "CEM (council of education ministers) took this difficult decision,…

Jun

30

2020

By The African Mirror

Better access to stories can improve adolescent lives in Africa

EDUCATION

ELLEKE BOEHMER, Professor of World Literature in English, University of Oxford ACROSS cultures, the self-making powers of storytelling are widely recognised. Steve Biko, the South African Black Consciousness thinker, once said that we need to speak from where we stand. Seeing the impact of our environment on our thinking about ourselves can change our thinking, he suggested. Telling our stories is an important way of doing so. Though stories are universal, access to them is not. We are involved in a project that’s trying to address this. The United Kingdom Research and Innovation fund’s Accelerate project is working with adolescent…

Jul

06

2020

By The African Mirror

Teachers’ fears are real and they need a willing ear

EDUCATION

ZANDILE BANGANI WITH schools steadily reopening to save what’s left of the academic year, teachers find themselves face to face with the Covid-19 pandemic that forced them to flee their classrooms in March. At the time of publication, at least 1 000 teachers had been infected with the coronavirus and the number was rising daily in a battle they never imagined having to fight. After much wrangling between the government and teacher unions about the best way to resume classes, schools have staggered their reopening. They have also implemented measures such as the decontamination of classrooms for the sake of teachers’…

Mar

02

2021

By The African Mirror

New report ranks how friendly – or not – African governments are towards girls

EDUCATION

THERE are approximately over 308 million girls below 18 years on the African continent. While the African Union’s legal and policy framework does refer – patchily – to the rights, interests and plight of girls; continental bodies and national governments can and should do more to protect girls, provide for them and ensure that they participate fully in society. RONGEDZAYI FAMBASAYI, Doctoral Researcher: Faculty of Law, North-West University Not only do governments have legal obligations to protect the life and well-being of girls, doing so also has economic benefits. For instance, it’s argued that every dollar invested in a girl’s…