EDUCATION - The African Mirror

Dec

2023

bird TenX: Top 10 Universities in Africa

UNIVERSITY of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa: Known for its stunning location at the foot of Table Mountain, UCT is the oldest university in South Africa as well as outside northern Africa and is renowned for its strong research output, diverse student body, and highly qualified faculty. Its comprehensive range of programs and its commitment to social justice and community engagement also contribute to its prestige. Its picturesque setting and diverse student body add to its appeal, making it a top choice for students seeking a world-class education in a unique environment. University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), South Africa: Located…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

Ethiopia’s education system is in crisis – now’s the time to fix it

EDUCATION

IN October 2023, Ethiopia’s minister of education, Berhanu Nega, disclosed several shocking figures on the outcomes of the 12th-grade national examination. Of the 3,106 schools that administered the 12th grade (secondary school leaving) examination for the 2022/23 academic year, 43% reported that none of their students had passed. TEBEJE MOLLA, Senior Lecturer, School of Education, Deakin University DAWIT TIBEBU TIRUNEH, Research Associate, University of Cambridge And, for the second consecutive year, more than 96% of students who participated in the national school leaving examination scored less than the mark (an average of 50%) required to pass. This means that hundreds…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

A free messaging app seemed useful for disadvantaged South African students: why they didn’t agree

EDUCATION

SOUTH African higher education is plagued by inequalities due to the social and economic legacies of apartheid. More than 50% of enrolment in higher education is from black, working-class, disadvantaged households from rural areas who depend on state-funded student aid. At the same time, some institutions of higher learning are also historically disadvantaged: they were designated for non-white students during the apartheid era. These institutions suffered discrimination, underfunding and limited resources, creating disparities in the country’s higher education system. FAZLYN PETERSEN, Information Systems Senior Lecturer, University of the Western Cape In a rapidly evolving digital era, one of the big…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

South African university students use AI to help them understand – not to avoid work

EDUCATION

WHEN ChatGPT was released in November 2022, it sparked many conversations and moral panics. These centre on the impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI) on the information environment. People worry that AI chatbots can negatively affect the integrity of creative and academic work, especially since they can produce human-like texts and images. TANJA BOSCH, Professor in Media Studies and Production, University of Cape Town CHIKEZIE E. UZUEGBUNAM, Lecturer & MA Programme Coordinator, Rhodes University ChatGPT is a generative AI model using machine learning. It creates human-like responses, having been trained to recognise patterns in data. While it appears the model…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

Nigeria’s women vice-chancellors: I know what it’s like to be one, and why there are so few

EDUCATION

THE secretary-general of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors in Nigeria recently disclosed that only 38 women have been vice-chancellors of universities in Nigeria since 1960, out of more than 720 in total. The Conversation Africa asked Ekanem Braide, the Nigerian Academy of Science president and a former vice-chancellor, why this is so and how the country can have more women as university heads. EKANEM BRAIDE, President, Nigerian Academy of Science Why are there so few female vice-chancellors in Nigeria? Only 5.27% of all Nigeria’s vice-chancellors since 1960 have been women. Only 12 of the current serving vice-chancellors are women. There are…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

South Africa’s literacy crisis: our app could help young readers by using home language and English

EDUCATION

LAURETTE MARAIS, Senior Researcher, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research LAURETTE PRETORIUS, Professor Extraordinarius, Stellenbosch University LITERACY changes lives: in Unesco’s words, it “empowers and liberates people, … reduces poverty, increases participation in the labour market and has positive effects on health and sustainable development”. But in South Africa, 8 out of 10 children cannot read for meaning by the end of their third school year. During the first three years of their education, South African children receive schooling in one of the 11 written official languages. Generally, this means being taught in their home language. Then, at the beginning…

Oct

2023

By ANNIKA SURMEIER, ALEX BIGNOTTI, BOB DOHERTY, DAVID LITTLEWOOD, DIANE HOLT, PHYLLIS AWOR, RALPH HAMANN and TEDDY OSSEI KWAKYE

Global university rankings now include social impact: African universities are off to a strong start

EDUCATION

WORLD university rankings are released towards the end of each year. Institutions globally scramble to see how they have fared. Have they risen or fallen? If so, by how much and in which rankings? Have they maintained their position in an increasingly competitive global higher education landscape? There have been some improvements in African universities’ performances. But the continent’s institutions still don’t feature prominently towards the top of the rankings. In the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2024, for instance, South Africa’s University of Cape Town is top for the continent, at 167th place. It is followed by…

Oct

2023

By The African Mirror

Colonialism shaped modern universities in Africa – how they can become truly African

EDUCATION

COLONIALISM profoundly shaped modern universities in Africa. It implanted institutions on African soil that were largely replicas of European universities rather than organically African. For historian and political theorist Achille Mbembe, one problem of universities in Africa “is that they are ‘Westernised”. He describes them as “local institutions of a dominant academic model based on a Eurocentric epistemic canon that attributes truth only to the Western way of knowledge production”. This model, he says, “disregards other epistemic traditions”. SALEEM BADAT, Research Professor, UFS History Department, University of the Free State My research is mainly on universities, especially on issues of…

Oct

2023

By OSCAR MUGABI ZULU, BIRD STORY AGENCY

The very long journey of Dalab Zimba, headteacher

EDUCATION

WHEN the COVID-19 pandemic struck his rural community, Dalab Zimba, the headmaster of a local private school knew that if his students did not pass the year, his school would fail financially. So he came up with a novel, if extreme, measure to keep his students up to date. Lacking the infrastructure needed to apply remote learning via the Internet, he simply used himself as the network. Masked and remaining outdoors, Zimba would visit the school's students one by one, walking vast distances across the countryside in northeastern Zambia to distribute teaching materials and ensure that they were able to…

Oct

2023

By The African Mirror

History teaching in South Africa could be vastly improved – if language skills were added to the mix

EDUCATION

IN recent years there’s been growing recognition among education experts that integrating content and language learning is key to promoting comprehensive academic achievement. This is particularly relevant in multilingual education systems where English serves as the primary medium of instruction. NHLANHLA MPOFU, Chair- Curriculum Studies, Stellenbosch University So, in 2013, South Africa’s Department of Basic Education, which is responsible for primary and secondary education, set out to enhance academic performance through a strategy called English Across the Curriculum. This approach involves integrating language skills in content subjects such as history. Language skills include listening and speaking; reading and viewing; writing…