EDUCATION - The African Mirror

Feb

03

2025

Education in Zimbabwe has lost its value: study asks young people how they feel about that

EDUCATION

EDUCATION, especially higher education, is a step towards adulthood and a foundation for the future. But what happens when education loses its value as a way to climb the social ladder? What if a degree is no guarantee of getting stable work, being able to provide for one’s family, or owning a house or car? This devaluing of higher education as a path to social mobility is a grim reality for young Zimbabweans. Over the past two decades, the southern African country has been beset by economic, financial, political and social challenges. These crises have severely undermined the premises and…

Jan

24

2025

By TEBEJE MOLLA

9 million Ethiopian children have been forced out of school: what the government must do

EDUCATION

MORE than nine million Ethiopian children are currently out of school. They are caught in the crossfire of armed conflicts, natural disasters, tribal tensions and economic hardships. In 2023, Ethiopia had a total school-aged population of 35,444,482 children, about 52% of them primary school-aged. In the same year, only 22,949,597 children were enrolled in schools, leaving over 35% of school-aged children out of school. In the past year, the ongoing humanitarian crisis has worsened the situation, forcing even more children out of school. Armed conflict erupted in 2020 between the federal government and Tigray regional government. The crisis was compounded…

Jan

23

2025

By HERKULAAS MVE COMBRINK

AI in education: what those buzzwords mean

EDUCATION

YOU’LL be hearing a great deal about artificial intelligence (AI) and education in 2025. The UK government unveiled its “AI opportunities action plan” in mid-January. As part of the plan it has awarded funding of £1 million (about US$1.2 million) to 16 educational technology companies to “build teacher AI tools for feedback and marking, driving high and rising education standards”. Schools in some US states are testing AI tools in their classrooms. A Moroccan university has become the first in Africa to introduce an AI-powered learning system across the institution. And the theme for this year’s United Nations International Day…

Jan

18

2025

By OLUWATOMILAYO OMOYA; OLUMIDE A ODEYEMI; OMOWALE A ODEYEMI and UDEME SAMUEL JACOB

African countries need more PhD graduates but students are held back by a lack of money and support

EDUCATION

OVER the past 15 years there’s been an increasing demand from within and outside the higher education sector for African countries to produce more PhD graduates. For this to happen, it’s important to know what’s holding people back from pursuing or completing their doctoral degrees. The authors of a new review article did just that, with a focus on South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Nigeria. Five themes emerged from their work: PhD candidates’ sociodemographic profiles, access to funding, the availability of resources and training, experiences with PhD supervisors, and personal coping mechanisms. The Conversation Africa spoke with the paper’s…

Jan

17

2025

By DAVID T. MARSHALL; TEANNA MOORE and TIMOTHY PRESSLEY

Technology is supposed to decrease teacher burnout – but we found it can sometimes make it worse

EDUCATION

WHEN we set out to study pandemic-related changes in schools, we thought we’d find that learning management systems that rely on technology to improve teaching would make educators’ jobs easier. Instead, we found that teachers whose schools were using learning management systems had higher rates of burnout. Our findings were based on a survey of 779 U.S. teachers conducted in May 2022, along with subsequent focus groups that took place in the fall of that year. Our study was peer-reviewed and published in April 2024. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools across the country were under lockdown orders, schools adopted…

Jan

15

2025

By LLOYD HILL

What one university’s 30-year transformation reveals about Afrikaans and language planning in South Africa

EDUCATION

WHEN South Africa became a democracy in 1994, five of the country’s universities used Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. There were also two bilingual universities teaching in Afrikaans and English. Stellenbosch University, about 50km from Cape Town, is the oldest historically Afrikaans university. Over the past three decades, English has gradually replaced Afrikaans in the core functions of teaching and research. The status of Afrikaans at formerly Afrikaans or bilingual universities remains the subject of considerable debate. This has led to litigation and three judgments in South Africa’s apex court, the Constitutional Court. Afrikaans is commonly categorised as an…

Jan

04

2025

By HEIDI MATISONN

Kids should be encouraged to talk back – 5 tips for teaching them critical thinking skills

EDUCATION

WHENEVER school holidays loom, many parents find themselves caught in an emotional tug-of-war: on the one hand, relief at bidding farewell to homework battles, bedtime struggles, and the lamenting of lost lunchboxes; on the other, terror at the daunting prospect of a barrage of “whys” and “buts” from their relentless interrogators. To avoid logic-defying arguments and endless debates, it is often not long before they find themselves playing the ultimate parental trump card: “Because I said so”. As a parent, I can relate. But I’m also a moral philosopher with almost two decades of teaching experience. In philosophy classes, students…

Dec

13

2024

By JULES GAZEAUD and CLAIRE RICARD

Moroccan schools are fuller thanks to cash grants. The problem now is the quality of their education – study

EDUCATION

Reprinted by permission from VoxDev THE spread of conditional cash transfer programmes in low- and middle-income countries has been described as perhaps the most remarkable innovation of recent decades in welfare programmes. These programmes provide regular cash transfers to poor families contingent on specific behaviours. These include school enrolment and regular attendance. The programmes started in the late 1990s in Mexico and quickly became the public policy of choice to fight poverty and low enrollment. Today, more than 60 countries operate education-conditional cash transfer programmes, often at a national scale. There is plenty of evidence showing that conditional cash transfers…

Dec

12

2024

By PEDRO TABENSKY

Universities must teach students what freedom is – a South African course is trying to do just that

EDUCATION

A typical student wants a university degree as a ticket to a salary. For this young person, education is a journey towards “having”. And the way to complete the journey is mainly to remember, repeat or reproduce what the teacher says and does. This having-orientation is understandable given the often precarious realities of life, particularly in the global south, including South Africa, where I am based as a university lecturer. It is understandable, yet it fosters apathy in the classroom, for the monetary aims of students are not typically aligned with the aims of learning. In response to this situation,…

Dec

11

2024

By CHRIS SPELDEWINDE

The beach is an amazing place to teach kids about science. Here are 3 things to try this summer

EDUCATION

SUMMER is a wonderful time for families to go to the beach and for small children to get to know the water and the sand. However, aside from being a place to relax, my new research shows that the beach provides many ways to teach young children about science. My ‘beach kinder’ research I research science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning in bush kinders. These are programs where preschool children regularly go into the natural environment with their daycare centre or kinder/preschool, to gain an appreciation for nature. Educators do not take any toys, balls or games, so children…