Education South Africa

Young Communist League demands free education

2007-01-31T10:35:00.000-08:00

By 2008, no pupil will pay a cent to get to a public school and pupils will no longer be taught under trees.

That is if all goes according to the wishes of the Young Communist League of South Africa (YCL).

“Our country has enough resources for this to become a reality. It is a question of putting priorities right, said YCL national secretary Buti Manamela.

“There are financial resources that are being wasted in mega infrastructures, such as Gautrain, Coega and the Dube Trade port, that have no impact on the poor and destitute.”

In addition the league is calling for a homogeneous uniform in schools across the country.
“The uniform standardisation will boost local textile industry and ensure affordability,” Manamela said.

He said there was a crisis in education, and vowed his organisation would not budge until every child had access to free education.

More emphasis ought to be put on improving public schools, and teachers’ salaries were an insult and disrespectful. That was why some headed for the private sector.

The young Reds will ask for a meeting with Education Minister Naledi Pandor to discuss the way forward.

Zim teachers are already here

2007-01-20T07:10:00.001-08:00

January 12 2007 at 10:38AM

South African teachers should not feel threatened by Education Minister Naledi Pandor wanting trained Zimbabweans to fill some of the vacant posts in mathematics and science.

This is according to Duncan Hindle, the director-general at the department of education. He was at pains to note that any move to recruit Zimbabwean teachers was not about displacing South Africans.

"One of the things I want to put straight is that we are not bringing Zimbabweans into the country, because in many cases they are already here," he argued.

According to the government estimates, there are about 10 000 fully trained Zimbabwean teachers living in this country, but not working in their field of expertise. Among them are about 4 000 qualified maths and science teachers.

"So why would we bypass quality (Zimbabwean) teachers if we need them ourselves?" asked Hindle, before cautioning: "Of course it goes without saying that any vacant jobs would be offered to a South African first."

In 2006, Pandor announced plans to recruit Indian experts at district level, and according to Hindle, the first of these could be in place by as early as March or April 2007.

The task of educating 12 million young South Africans is not one Hindle takes lightly. Yet he is optimistic that by the time Pandor's term in office comes to a close in 2009, great inroads will have been made.

The central education budget of R90-billion is the biggest single spend in the government. That has gone a long way in constructing 17 000 new classrooms over the past two years.

According to Hindle's estimates, 40 000 new classrooms are required to meet current needs - a goal he would like to see the department achieve within three years from now.

In 2007, the target of providing free education to five million children was met under the "no fees" policy.

"That's 40 percent of all learners," Hindle noted. And within about three years from now, we would like to hit the 50 percent mark."

While that might be comforting news to many, what about those who are still struggling to find a school place, fee-paying or otherwise, this week?

Late registration, coupled with a 10 percent increase in the overall student population, has left many schools stretched beyond capacity.

But Hindle says that the department can provide education for everyone. "In the next couple of days we should have every child in a school, and in a classroom, and not under a tree, or anything archaic like that."

DA wary of new Eastern Cape education MEC

2007-01-20T07:08:00.000-08:00

January 16, 2007, 17:15

The Democratic Alliance (DA) says John Makgato, the new Eastern Cape education MEC, has been thrown in the deep end as he has no background in education. Tomorrow is back to school for coastal provinces. Naledi Pandor, the education minister, will visit the Eastern Cape.

Since 1994 the province has had seven education MECs and a hoad of other administrative problems. Some schools are still experiencing the problem of late delivery of stationery.

The DA has criticised Makgato’s appointment. “ Nosimo Balindlela, the premier did not apply her mind right. Having been an education MEC herself, she should have known what quality of person should be appointed at that post. She did not do that. She should have looked for someone with expertise in education,” said Donald Smiles, the DA education spokesperson in the Eastern Cape.

Due to bungling in the nutrition programme, learners will go hungry as the programme will only start next month. This is because of the failed community-based school nutrition programme spearheaded by Mkhangeli Matomela, the former education MEC. A forensic report has revealed that about R100 million was lost through this initiative.

The report has been tabled and recommends that contracts of the cooperatives providing food be cancelled. So far five senior education department officials have been suspended.

The Eastern Cape has a vacancy rate of 400 posts. Opposition parties said this is one of the factors crippling education in the province and something needs to be done urgently to change this.

Zimbabwe Govt Awaits SA Move On Zim Teachers

2007-01-20T07:07:00.000-08:00

January 18, 2007

THE government says it will closely watch moves by South Africa to recruit Zimbabwean science and mathematics teachers before it can respond.

"There is no country in the world which can just say take all these teachers, especially science and maths teachers, who are in demand. We will however wait for South Africa to make a formal request then we can respond accordingly. So far no communication has taken place," the Deputy Minister of Education, Sport and Culture, Isaiah Shumba said in an interview.

The minister said Zimbabwe cannot afford to continue training professionals for other countries.

"It is a brain drain and we cannot afford to continue like this. Movements are not strange, it's common for people to seek greener pastures, they go to China, Australia, South Africa and many other countries. It's a pattern. But I don't see an easy way of stopping them because in any case they will move," said Shumba.

"We are however trying to improve their working conditions since we would also like to retain this critical manpower," he said.

The South African government has already made it clear that it wants to recruit Zimbabwean teachers to boost its professional base in the two subjects, a move expected to improve pass rates.

The South African Education Minister, Naledi Pandor, told the South African press last week of the intended move.

This attracted a barrage of criticism from workers' unions in South Africa, accusing the country of exploiting the situation in Zimbabwe by offering higher salaries and better working conditions.

The government is believed to be mulling plans to bar migrating teachers from rejoining the service if they consider coming back home.

But Shumba denied this. "I don't think it is government policy but we would encourage them to stay and help develop the education of the country."

According to the Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), Zimbabwe lost 4 000 teachers to neighbouring countries such as South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia in 2005 alone. An estimated 4 800 teachers left the country last year.

Many Zimbabwean teachers have been leaving the country in search of better salaries and working conditions. Teachers are among a band of poorly paid professionals in Zimbabwe earning salaries below the poverty datum line.

PTUZ president, Raymond Majongwe, said government must put its act together and stop the flight of teachers.

"We sympathise with the teachers, circumstances are forcing them to go out. But we can not celebrate, all we can do is put pressure on government to improve conditions of service," said Majongwe.

Call to discuss Afrikaans schooling

2007-01-20T07:06:00.001-08:00

The future of Afrikaans schooling needs to be discussed urgently, the Freedom Front Plus said yesterday.

In a statement calling for a meeting on the issue with the Education Minister Naledi Pandor, FF Plus youth leader Cornelius Jansen van Rensburg said national conciliation demanded government pay more attention to multi-lingualism. “Until now, the government has merely tried to appease the Afrikaans community with the assurance that the Constitution guarantees mother-tongue education, and that the government would not infringe upon this right.

“Just after the ANC came to power, English-speaking pupils were purposefully enrolled in Afrikaans schools. Feasibility was not an issue at the time.

“Now that the situation has been reversed, schools which had previously been Afrikaans have now unilaterally become English schools,” he said.

Children still learning under trees

2007-01-20T07:05:00.001-08:00

January 19 2007 at 10:46AM

Children from the province's poorest regions are still learning under trees despite assurances from the president and the education department since 2005 that the problem would be eradicated soon.

Pupils from grades one, two and four were found learning under trees in the sweltering heat when The Mercury visited Landulwazi Primary School in the rural region of Msinga, north-west of Greytown, on Thursday.

In April 2005, education minister Naledi Pandor gave KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo Province two months to come up with a plan to find alternative accommodation for pupils being taught under trees.

The provincial infrastructure budget for 2005/06 was realigned to ensure that cases in which pupils were being taught outdoors were prioritised, according to Pandor's instructions.

Media reports early last year highlighted the poor condition of Landulwazi Primary and Education Superintendent-General Cassius Lubisi responded that eight new classrooms and eight new toilets would be built. However, no construction has taken place.

On Thursday, older pupils at Landulwazi were crammed into four classrooms, one of which was dilapidated, with two classes and two teachers occupying each room. Some pupils sat on the floor.

In one classroom two teachers were conducting history and mathematics lessons simultaneously while trying not to disrupt each other.

The principal has no office - she also conducts her work under the trees, using a wooden bench as her desk.

Learning outdoors leaves the pupils at the mercy of the elements. Tests and exams are often cancelled because of inclement weather.

It also appears that the education department did not tell the school, which has about 450 pupils, that it had been designated a no-fee school and did not have to collect its annual R30 school fee from pupils.

Education MEC Ina Cronje said this week that the schools in the province with the worst figures for income per household, unemployment rates and levels of education came from the Msinga Municipality, within the Umzinyathi district. All schools in the area were no-fee schools, she said. The region's education and income levels were dismal, with a 23,85 percent literacy level, R2 283,89 average yearly income and a dependency ratio of 89 people per household, said department spokesperson Christi Naude.

The Mercury caught up with Pandor, who was visiting Somashi High School, a few kilometres away, to donate 20 computers and evaluate its state of readiness. She said she was unaware of the situation at Landulwazi.

The problems brought to her attention were the drug and alcohol abuse among pupils in the Msinga area and the low literacy levels.

According to Pandor, the lack of school infrastructure countrywide was because of rains that had caused old buildings to crumble and left pupils without classrooms.

Lubisi repeated this, saying that the "very complex issue of schools under trees was being dealt with".

"Each time there is a natural disaster, there is a possibility that weak structures are washed away."

When confronted with the Landulwazi Primary School case, Lubisi said a sharp increase in pupil numbers had probably caused the lack of classroom space and that there were other schools in the area standing nearly empty.

The Umkhanyakhude Municipality in the north of the province had far worse infrastructure problems and poverty, he said.

Landulwazi Primary would probably receive more classrooms in the 2007/08 infrastructure plan, he said.

Minister in the dark on graphic sex education

2007-01-12T11:19:00.000-08:00

Schoolchildren in the Eastern Cape are allegedly being very graphically taught how to wear condoms during the Life Orientation programme.

The Citizen has been informed that instead of emphasising abstinence, primary and high school children are taught in class how to use condoms.

An Eastern Cape Life Orientation teacher who did not want to be named said, “I don’t know whether I sound old-fashioned or not, but I don’t think it is acceptable to teach children to use condoms and be faithful to their partners at school.”

The source said teaching children about the dangers of HIV/Aids and its prevention was acceptable, but being explicit on sex was not an option.

Minister of Education Naledi Pandor’s spokesman, Lunga Ngqengelele, said: “I cannot deny or confirm that children are taught to wear condoms in schools.

“But the Minister has emphasised condoms cannot be distributed in schools, and children should not experiment in sexual activities.”

But Ngqengelele said: “If they are sexually active they should use condoms and be faithful.”

Opening Pandor(a)'s box

2007-01-12T11:17:00.000-08:00

Will 2006 go down in the history of South African education as the year in which the national government tried to wriggle out of responsibility for what is going on in our schools?

The question is provoked by Minister of Education Naledi Pandor’s curiously evasive performance when she released the matric results on Thursday last week. In particular, two major features of her televised address helped to create the impression that the national Education Department is a largely helpless (and hapless) observer of a situation that is beyond its control.

In the first place, she delivered varying degrees of ministerial rebuke to parents, teachers, school districts and provincial education departments for results that recorded a decline in the overall pass rate for the third year in a row. And secondly, having spent most of her speech analysing what the matric results tell us, she mysteriously concluded that doing so provides “a poor means of analysing our system. One point in a year cannot be used to assess the whole system of schooling”.

On this second point, we should recall where Pandor’s argument comes from. Her predecessor, Kader Asmal, presided for five years over ludicrously implausible year-on-year increases in the matric pass rate, from 48,9% in 1999 to a gobsmacking high of 73,2% in 2003. His claims, cruder and more strident with every passing year, were that these vaulting increases showed the robustly growing health of the post-1994 government’s school system.

Initially, only a few dissidents pointed out that brutal tactics such as preventing borderline pupils from writing matric, or forcing them to take subjects on the standard grade, had far more to do with the soaring pass rate than did real educational achievement. But by 2003 minority dissidence had swelled to an unprecedented crescendo of public scepticism; perhaps not coincidentally, Asmal received the axe shortly thereafter.

Pandor has therefore precisely misapplied the originally dissident argument. It is not that matric results provide a poor means of analysing the system: they do so only if we make claims for the results that are not supported by evidence from elsewhere in the system. And from that point of view, the very detail that has caused so much public anguish and angry denunciation over the past 10 days -- a 1,7% drop in passes to 66,6% -- could just as well be read as a necessary, if painful, return to something closer to reality after the artificial inflations of the Asmal years.

After all, indicators other than matric pass rates continue to point to extremely low levels of educational achievement. International benchmarking, for instance, regularly assesses numeracy and literacy levels among our lower school grades as well below average.

This point brings us to Pandor’s diagnoses of why our system is faltering. She is surely correct to highlight provinces, school districts, teachers and parents; no one disagrees that what constitutes the school experience is multi-determined and so, very complex.

But two of the minister’s other criticisms of the system’s performance serve to raise questions about the extent to which the national government is indeed playing its part. Illustrating her contention that districts need to provide better support to schools she observed that the Namakwa district in the Northern Cape has merely 20 secondary schools to oversee, while the Capricorn district in Limpopo has a staggering 362.

It is dismaying, however, 12 years into our democratic dispensation, to hear a national education minister produce this figure with an air of discovery. School districts do not come about via acts of God: government officials draw lines on a map. And for years educationists have been sounding alarms about the functioning of districts, usually to deafening government silence.

The second example concerns the wretchedly low 2006 pass rates in higher grade maths and science -- 4,8% and 5,6% respectively. Rather wanly, Pandor commented that “we will have to pay much closer attention to performance in these subjects”.

But what “attention” exactly has the national government been paying for 10 years now regarding these subjects? Since 1997 the pass rate in maths has never exceeded 5,3%; in science over the same period the highest pass rate was a paltry 5,9%. After all, “national [government] is responsible for policy development, monitoring and support to ensure we achieve desired outcomes,” Pandor observed; yet what has its monitoring over 10 years in these two areas achieved?

The broad point is that, for years before Pandor assumed office, but also since then, the national government has consistently missed key chances to intervene effectively where it can most make a difference. Three instances are germane here. All educationists agree that children who receive well-supported pre-schooling programmes thrive when they get to school; yet the budget for this -- namely, early childhood development -- remains a derisory 1% of education spending. As a result, many poor children, who most need such programmes cannot be accommodated.

Equally, for pupils whom the school system has failed, adult education programmes should in theory be an option if they are not allowed to repeat matric, yet the budget for adult education remains at about 1%. Here too it is mainly poor pupils who are affected and so need this option, so why does this area remain such a low government priority?

Thirdly, the government last year missed a major opportunity to stem the growing losses in the teaching workforce when it allocated financing for only 1 400 teaching bursaries. The inadequacy of this is stark when one contemplates the figures: about 20 000 teachers leave the profession annually, yet universities produce only about 6 000 new teachers every year.

One might sympathise with Pandor’s desire, expressed last Thursday, to reduce what she called the “hype” of the announcement of matric results and to do away with the TV coverage. But even if that happens, she will still need to show us how the national minister intends to assume accountability for what happens in our schools.

Matrics depressed about future in SA

2007-01-05T07:30:00.000-08:00

A national counselling centre says a large portion of an average 200 calls a day have come from depressed matriculants in the Western Cape, despite the province's 83,7 percent pass rate.

The South African Depression and Anxiety Group (Sadag) has been inundated with calls from matriculants who failed their exams or, having passed, were concerned about their futures.

Janine Shamos, senior counsellor and trainer at Sadag, said the phone calls had eased up recently but they were ringing off the hook last Thursday and Friday, when the results were released.

She said it was difficult to determine exactly how many calls had come from the Western Cape.

"There was an incredible increase in the number of calls we received," she said.

"We got a lot of calls from the Western Cape and are still receiving calls from pupils who have passed but are struggling to cope with the stress of what to do with their lives."

She said it was the first time that so many calls had been received at this time of year and that calls had come from a diverse spectrum of teenagers from rural, urban, wealthy and poorer communities.

Shamos encouraged parents to speak to their children.

The centre will run a programme at schools this year to teach youngsters coping skills.

"Children are not prepared to handle stress, and they don't know how to study properly," she said.

Lifeline counsellors said the organisation had received quite a few education-related calls from parents regarding their children's futures but |not that many from matriculants.

Education Minister Naledi Pandor has revealed her dissatisfaction with the "hype" around the results announcement at this time of year.

She said it was time the country aligned itself with international practice, and allowed for the results statement to be based on published school achievements and the conclusions of the quality assuring body.

A total of 39 832 candidates in the province wrote the full matric examinations this year.

About 2 290 achieved distinctions - 79 more than last year. Merit passes were one less than last year.

A total of 10 589 candidates received endorsements, 195 more than in 2005.

Endorsements enable candidates to register to study at universities and technikons.

Scary trend in Matric results

2007-01-05T07:29:00.000-08:00

While congratulations are due to all those young people who passed their matric, the declining pass rate is of grave concern and shows that the Education Department is failing the youth of this country and its future economic prospects.

This year's matric pass rate is a mere 66.6% - a decline of 1.7% from 2005 - which means that a third of those who wrote the matric exams failed the core test of their schooling.

In KwaZulu-Natal the situation is even worse, with a pass rate that has dropped from 70.5% in 2005 to 65.7% this year.

The scary fact is the education system is failing to supply South Africa's youth with the necessary tools to graduate from secondary to tertiary education or from schools into the market place.

What makes it worse is that this is the third year in a row that the results have declined, on top of which the number of learners who received exemptions and the number who passed matric maths and science on Higher Grade also dropped.

Minister of Education Naledi Pandor's explanation, that schools are inadequately resourced and funded is quite correct, but she cannot hide behind these factors without a comprehensive plan to turn the declining pass rates dramatically around.

What is abundantly clear is that there is something seriously amiss with education in this country and a cohesive plan needs to be devised urgently to put matters right

One interesting facet of the results is the fact that girls in KZN outperformed their male counterparts and received more university entrance exemptions. This could mean that the work place could receive a far greater number of women in the years to come, as girls swept the boards in business economics, economics and travel.

This also shows that girls, particularly in the rural areas, have greater access to the schooling system and are making good use of the opportunities provided despite the lack of resources so often found in rural schools.

Matric pass rate down by 2%

2007-01-01T11:52:00.000-08:00

The national matric pass rate dropped almost two per cent this year, with the blame being put on absenteeism, bad management and lack of infrastructure at schools.

The government also expressed concern that pupils weren‘t scoring high enough to further their education.

Figures released yesterday showed that the Eastern Cape‘s low pass rate was slightly up on last year, while the Southern Cape followed the national trend with a marginal decrease.

The Eastern Cape‘s 2,6% improvement raised the pass rate to 59,3%, but education authorities made it clear that they were far from happy with the results and have vowed to tackle critical areas of concern.

The education department says it has already initiated intervention projects.

In the Southern Cape, there was a slight drop in the pass rate from 85,9% in 2005 to 84,7%.

Nationally, the number of full- time pupils who wrote this year‘s matric exam was the highest yet, but the government is worried about a drop in the total of those scoring high enough to enter universities and other tertiary education institutions.

“More hard, focused and diagnostically accurate work is needed to place us where we want to be – a point where we see higher outcomes, stronger science, mathematics and language passes, and expanded success rates for entry to higher education,” said Education Minister Naledi Pandor.

A total of 351 503 of the record 528 525 full-time students who sat the exam were successful, with this year‘s 66,5% pass rate lower than last year‘s 68,3%, when 347 184 of 508 363 candidates were successful.

Of the 69 561 candidates who sat the exam in the Eastern Cape this year, 29 292 – or 40,7% – failed. The department said it was not satisfied with this result.

The outcome does not meet the target of a 5% increase the department had set for itself and falls just short of the 60% pass rate achieved in 2003.

However, Education MEC Mkhangeli Matomela said it was heartening to note that the small increase over last year‘s result had been achieved against a backdrop of many of the other provinces experiencing a downward trend in results.

The number of matric candidates obtaining an endorsement also increased slightly over last year to 10,1%.

In the Southern Cape, a total of 4 188 pupils wrote this year‘s exam – up slightly from last year‘s 3 972 – with 3 549 passes, and 23,2% of that figure with endorsement.

Matomela told a media briefing in East London: “There needs to be improvement – I am not satisfied at all. Our schools were capable of achieving more than they achieved this year.”

Matomela said the focus in the new year would be on stabilising the department, working together with traditional leaders and business partners, and concentrating on the “whole system” and not just matric outcomes.

“We are trapped in Grade 12 fever,” he said. About 700 people – including matric candidates, their parents, teacher union representatives and senior members of the education department – gathered in East London yesterday for the release of the 2006 results.

Addressing the guests, Matomela said a study he had initiated following the 2005 matric exams which scrutinised schools with a pass rate between zero and 20% revealed, among other things, that a major cause of poor performance was absenteeism.

“Unacceptably high levels of absenteeism were reported among educators in poorly performing schools,” he said. “They are stealing from the government. It is clear that the management of leave, including sick leave, must be tightened up to ensure that educators are in class when they are supposed to be.”

Pupil absenteeism was also a growing concern. Matomela said the reasons for this included drug abuse, teenage pregnancies, cohabitation, social grant payments, poverty and customary rites. Despite appeals to traditional leaders, he said, Grade 12 pupils were undergoing rites at critical times of the year and absenteeism was frequent on either side of school holidays. After warning letters were issued last year when principals were asked to account for their school‘s performance, Matomela said, the department realised that many of them had not had sufficient training and support.

It had initiated a system of mentors to assist principals. The project had already had a meaningful outcome. “Of the 46 schools which achieved less than 20% (pass rate) in 2005 which were part of the project, all but six have showed improvement in their overall pass rate this year – one even moving from 18,2% to 100%.”

The average improvement was 19,9%.

Southern Cape district head Bonnie Sesenyamotse said the results in the region were good, “it‘s just that one still hopes that you can get to the elusive 100% pass”. Only three schools in the district had pass rates lower than 60% – the benchmark for under-performance.

“The three worst-performing schools in the district came in at 57%.”

Why should we pay under-performers?

2006-12-30T10:04:00.000-08:00

EASTERN Cape Education MEC Mkhangeli Matomela has ordered district managers to crack the whip on all principals whose matric results dropped this year despite the special support their schools got from the government.

Matomela’s stern warning yesterday followed his announcement of a 59,3 percent matric pass rate in the Eastern Cape – an increase of 2,6 percent on last year.

The Education Department spent more than R23 million on its Matric Intervention Programme (MIP) to assist 353 schools whose matric results dipped to less than 50 percent last year.

About 46 of these schools received extra attention through the MEC’s Intervention Programme, which saw mentors visiting the schools weekly and motivational speakers doing monthly rounds.

But only six showed improvement in their overall pass rates.

“I’ve had a meeting with district directors and I gave them a clear mandate to act against principals of the schools whose matric results have dropped,” the MEC said in East London yesterday when he announced the results.

The principals received warnings last year.

The MEC pointed to Khanyolwethu Senior Secondary School at Ngcobo, where eight matrics sat for exams last year and none passed.

The school’s results dropped from 63,6 percent in 2004, to 41,7 percent last year.

“If I was a district director of that school which received zero percent this year, I would suspend the principal immediately and appoint someone who will run that school properly right from the beginning of the year ...

“We cannot continue paying people who are under-performing.

“Private companies do not pay people who do not perform. Why is it that in government, we continue to pay people who are not performing?”

The province is among four whose matric results improved this year. Gauteng, North West and Mpumalanga were the others.

Of the 41268 pupils who passed this year, 22656 are female.

But only 7002 of the 69561 (10,1 percent) of all Eastern Cape matrics qualify to go to university.

Of these 3418 are male and 3584 female.

Education Minister Naledi Pandor welcomed the Eastern Cape’s improvement but raised concerns as the province was “still way below” the national average.

Matomela said next month there will be a conference for all stakeholders to craft a strategy which would assist the province crack the 60 percent mark.

“I am not satisfied at all with these results.

“Our learners have got the potential to do more than what we have achieved.

“This province belongs in the 70s and above … if one takes into account its history.”

Last December, Matomela said nothing less than a 5percent improvement would be acceptable.

ANC Education portfolio committee chairperson Mahlubandile Qwase welcomed the increase but regretted that they had not achieved the target.

PAC’s Zingisa Mkabile called for greater investment in books so that the not-so-good results of agriculture, maths and science improve.

“Overall, we are moving in the right direction.”

Teachers have mixed feelings about pass rate

2006-12-28T13:07:00.000-08:00

The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) congratulated successful matriculants on Thursday, but said the small decline in the pass rate was cause for concern.

"The small decline in the pass rate - for the second year - has to be cause for concern. Educational progress cannot be allowed to stall," the union said in a statement on Thursday.

"We need a qualitative leap forward in terms of pass rates. We need more information and workable strategies to improve the quality of education on the ground. But we also need teachers, learners, parents and the department to come together and commit themselves to improving the quality of education."

Sadtu said the increase in the number of matriculants in the last five years had not been matched by an increase in resources, particular in large, poor rural provinces.

Problems with resource allocation to schools stemmed from inadequate budgets to provinces, underspending by some provinces and an insufficient share of provincial budgets going to education.

"Present mechanisms - particularly the post provisioning model - are unable to get resources to where they are needed. This results in over-large class sizes and failure to make permanent appointments. Sadtu will be taking up the issue of post provisioning and temporary teachers as a priority campaign in the new year."

However, the union said it was encouraged by the increase in the number of matriculants and believed that to maintain this increase in access to education the factors leading to drop-out and failure must be understood.

"Our sense is that issues of historical disadvantage and poverty associated with race, gender, class and the rural-urban divide, and uneven support and poor management especially in some districts and provinces are crucial here and we would expect the department of education to deepen its analysis in this respect."

The department must also explain why results are uneven across the provinces with improvements in four provinces, the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the North West and deterioration in the rest.

"We need to understand better why these differences occur. Limpopo stands out with a decline of over nine percent in the pass rate. This needs to be investigated."

Sadtu said support and monitoring had a positive effect on performance in badly performing schools but around 139 schools in 2006 produced a pass rate below 20 percent.

"It appears that the strategy needs to be extended beyond poorly performing schools to include identification of schools at risk of falling into this category."

The union said it was also necessary to assist students from poor communities to access tertiary institutions.

"We need to investigate the feasibility of a central admissions agency to make the process of applying more affordable, to assist in finding places and to help direct student funding to where it is needed most," said Sadtu.

Education system fails kids

2006-12-28T12:54:00.000-08:00

The South African education system and the economy are failing the pupils of the country, the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) said in a statement on Thursday.

The union said this following the release of the 2006 matric results.

"The education system does not yet prepare learners for the world of work, as the recent policy reforms are not established enough to deliver tangible results in practice," said union general secretary Dennis George.

He said Fedusa was also concerned about "the lagging standards in South African schools".

"This two-fold problem has been acknowledged by the Department of Education... on the one hand we find a syllabus that has arguably diminished over the past years, while on the other we find numerous problems relating to capacity."

The Democratic Alliance released a statement saying the education system is failing to provide South Africa's youth with the skills needed to move into tertiary education institutions or enter the job market.

DA education spokesperson George Boinamo noted a third of the country's matriculants were failing their core schooling.

George noted capacity problems as the unavailability of suitably qualified teachers in priority subjects such as maths and science, and provision of standardised study material and physical learning environments.

In regard to the economy, George said not enough jobs were being created to absorb the passing matriculants.

"While the economy was able to generate 544 000 new jobs in the period between March 2005 and March 2006, Fedusa remains concerned that the majority of these budding learners will not be able to find sustainable employment," he said.

No reason for the gloom

2006-12-28T12:44:00.000-08:00

EDUCATION experts were predicting last night that the Eastern Cape’s matric class of 2006 is set for gloomy news today.

They believe that, when the matric results are officially released this morning, they will show, at best, a small improvement on last year’s pass of 56,7 percent – or, at worst, the unthinkable, a decline.

This comes on the back of a promise by the province after last year’s terrible results that this year would be different.

However, a senior government official told the Daily Dispatch that despite the gloom in education circles there had been an improvement.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said: “What is definite is that there is some improvement. We are steadily improving year-by-year, contrary to what people expect, despite the challenges that we face.”

He refused to give the exact figure, saying it was the “prerogative of the Minister (Naledi Pandor) and the MEC (Mkhangeli Matomela) to give the specific figures”.

His assessment follows three weeks of speculation that the actual figure had dropped by at least a percentage point from last year.

“This information came because the overall results had not been verified and finalised,” he said.

“This has been a long process that has only been finalised in the last few days.”

Education Department spokesperson Loyiso Pulumani could not confirm or deny the increase.

“Unfortunately at this stage I have no preview to any information that pertains to the outcome of the 2006 matric results.

“Just like everybody else throughout the country, we also await with bated breath for those results.”

He said Bhisho had put in a lot of work towards improving the results, through a learner attainment strategy and the Matric Intervention Programme.

“We are hopeful that they will bear fruit, especially to those that did extremely bad last year.”

The Dispatch was told that Education Department head Nomlamli Mahanjana, who has been in close contact with exam regulator Umalusi and Pandor’s office, only gave her political head, MEC Matomela, a briefing yesterday.

Matomela, in turn, briefed other stakeholders, including teachers’ unions about the overall picture.

Union representatives refused to divulge any information, saying the results would be made known to the public today.

“We can’t speculate.” said Douglas Rwentela, National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa provincial chairperson, who was at the meeting.

“All I can say is that one would expect the province to perform better as there was stability in 2006.”

However, he said, the overall problem-free year could be overshadowed by the ongoing problems of the “far from perfect” manner in which the Learner Support Material programme was being managed by the department.

“We’ve had many high schools who received little or no stationery at all.

“There are still schools without teachers for matric subjects.

“This overshadows the political stability that we enjoyed this year. That’s why we expect anything when results are announced.”

Streis Wahl, Suid-Afrikaanse Onderwysers Unie’s provincial chairperson, was even less optimistic.

“I don’t think this year’s results will be any better than last year’s,” said Wahl.

He attributed the poor performance to the fact that teachers have been called away to so many workshops run by the department during school hours throughout the year.

“We’ve had CAS (continuous assessment) sessions during class time, as well as workshops of the new curriculum during school hours.

“Our children have been left alone, no revision – nothing.

“And now you tell me that results will improve.

“That will never happen unless the department learns to respect school time and arrange training workshops for after hours.”

Mxolisi Dimaza, South African Democratic Teachers’ Union provincial secretary, concurred with points raised by Rwentela and Wahl, although he was optimistic that, despite the challenges, the results would improve.

Dimaza said the February agreement signed between unions and the department, which saw thousands of temporary teachers being absorbed into the system, had boosted the morale of both teachers and pupils.

“I am positive that this (agreement) will yield better results. Teachers were committed, as were the learners,” said Dimaza.

Over the last five years, the pass rate has fluctuated.

Last year’s result was an improvement over 2004 when a measly 53,5 percent of Grade 12s passed.

This year, 75046 full-time candidates sat for the exam.

100% Failure Shock For School

2006-12-25T16:10:00.000-08:00

Heads were set to roll in North West’s education department on Friday after every pupil from Grade 8 to Grade 11 failed in a Ganyensa school near Vryburg.

Those in a nearby school had a pass rate of about 13%.

Charles Raseala, the provincial education spokesperson, said it was a disaster.

“Clearly, there was no teaching in these schools. Incompetence and leadership problems were clearly to blame?

The headmasters of Kgomonyane Secondary School and Huhudi High School, as well as senior department officials, were called to Mafikeng for urgent talks with Pastor O J Tselapedi, the MEC for education.

Of the 667 pupils in grades 8 to 11 in Kgomonyane, one pupil was promoted after marks were adjusted, but Raseala said this was regarded as a fail.

Teachers called back to schools

At Huhudi, which accepts pupils only from Grade 10 through to matric, there are about 620 pupils in grades 10 and 11, of whom 541 failed.

This did not bode well for the matric results at either school.

Immediately after Thursday’s meeting, a team was sent to Ganyensa to investigate.

Teachers were expected to suspend their holidays and to report to the schools on Friday to help with investigations.

Tselapedi said disciplinary measures would be taken as quickly as possible against officials and teachers who had not performed.

Raseala said the headmasters and teachers at the school could not blame their poor results on a lack of resources.

In fact, resources had been made allocated especially, to ensure that they would improve their performance.

Kgomonyane, for instance, had a computer centre and a science lab.

Raseala said squabbles between staff and in-fighting in the schools’ management structures were among the main reasons for the bad performance.

Parents want answers

At Kgomonyane, a new headmaster had been appointed in April, after the deputy headmaster had been acting in the post for a long time. This had led to friction.

In March, a regional official had reported that problems could be looming, but “unfortunately, head office did not hear about it”.

Pupils and parents wanted answers from the department.

Tselapedi said he would address them next Wednesday and until then he asked for calm so that the investigation could go ahead.

Girl compensated after pit latrine ordeal

2006-12-23T09:52:00.000-08:00

After a drawn-out battle with the department of education a four-year-old girl will finally be awarded R20 000 in compensation after she fell into a pit latrine at her school.

Thanks to the South African Human Rights Commission who intervened on Andiswa Dube's behalf, a settlement was reached that will ensure her education needs are taken care of for some years to come.

In August the Umgababa Primary School pupil fell into a latrine pit at the school. She was rescued by fellow pupils and teachers.

The commission visited the school, inspected the toilets and held discussions with the principal. A report was then sent to Education MEC Ina Cronje and Education Minister Naledi Pandor.

Subsequently the commission entered into negotiations with the department on behalf of Andiswa. "It was finally agreed that the department of education would provide R20 000 to Andiswa to be utilised exclusively for the advancement of her education," said Commissioner Karthy Govender.

Govender said the department outlined the plans and proposals they had to eradicate the use of pit latrines and to replace them with water-borne sewage systems or other comparable facilities.

"The eradication of pit latrines in schools will go a long way towards the achievement of an environment where effective and proper education can be carried out," he said.

Spokesperson Christi Naude confirmed the R20 000 would be paid, and added the department was very sorry the girl had to experience what she did. She said Umgababa Primary was 29th on the Umlazi District priority list in the department's 2007/08 Infrastructure Plan and would receive 18 new toilets.

However, owing to the budget allocations to the districts for the department's Water and Sanitation Programme, "it is highly unlikely that the school will receive these facilities in the 2007/08 financial year on the current prioritisation", she said.

R50m missing from Durban varsity

2006-12-23T09:50:00.000-08:00

Six Durban University of Technology (DUT) staff members have been suspended following an investigation into the disappearance of R50-million, SABC news reported Thursday.

Jonathan Jansen, a professor at the university, said the suspects were facing a disciplinary hearing.

Earlier this year, Naledi Pandor, the education minister, dissolved the council and appointed Jansen to oversee the institution until a new council was appointed.

Education system in South Africa is failing

2006-12-23T09:48:00.000-08:00

Education is deeply embedded in society, its values and structures. But it is not a simple relation. Education carries a forward-looking component, the hope of a new outlook, of a society based on growth and expansion, combined with a sharing of wealth and opportunity that might be indicators of development.

Education contributes to the base of skills that enables an economy and society to function and grow, and allows the individual access to channels of advancement and hope. Further, it provides the citizenship and social orientations that ensure peace and stability, and shared perspectives to enable the society to progress for the benefit of all.

If education bears so many of the responsibilities of the wider society, it is also then not surprising that society at large bears down on what happens in our education system.

The priorities, the choices to invest, the existence or otherwise of a range of resources that support or hinder the education project, can surely not be located within the education system alone. We need to look beyond the schooling system to the wider society.

It is, then, also not surprising that in society will be found many of the technical solutions that can improve education. But the greatest resource in education is the wider society itself.

Communities are the crucial resource base: mobilising them to support education can never be a purely technical process if solutions are to embed and deepen their hold.

South African education is in serious trouble. Many achievements are a source of pride. But South Africa is on the brink of expanded growth - and the production of high-level skills is insufficient to meet the demands this brings.

Furthermore, in a country with great expectations of equity, education is failing to make the grade in poor, rural and township schools.

It could be argued that "for 60% to 80% of our children, education reinforces marginalisation, condemning them to a second economy of unemployment and survival".

At their worst, many township and rural schools have been described as sinkholes, where children are "warehoused" rather than educated. We can argue there are two parallel education systems, mirroring the two economies that separate South Africans.

The education system is failing to make the grade. This finds expression in relatively poor outcomes. Our basic reading scores and maths and science literacy are consistently among the worst in the world, including much of Africa.

But more alarming are the disparities between schools.

In a 2001 study, 65% of children in Model C (formerly white) schools had appropriate scores at Grade 6 level, but the figure for former Department of Education and Training (black) schools was only 0.1%.

Only about 5% of pupils write higher grade maths and science for matric, and the matric exemption rate is static or falling at 17%. Probably about 50% of pupils drop out before completion, with one recent study claiming only 32% of 2003 Grade 10s made it through Grade 12.

Where pupils should expect opportunities and assistance, they find their hopes and dreams crumbling and face obstacles, rather than ladders, to progress and self-esteem.

The first acknowledgement we as a society need to make - and education minister Naledi Pandor herself has often been at the forefront in this - is of the depth and reality of the problem.

Some of the solutions rest within the schools.

First, classroom factors are central, such as teacher capabilities, subject knowledge, time-on-task, teaching methods and application, and availability of textbooks and materials. These can be summarised as the in-school resources.

With low content knowledge, burdens of administration, suspicion and difficulties with outcomes-based education (OBE), poor time spent on the job and much ill-discipline, it is unsurprising that reports show more than half of teachers have thought of leaving and morale is uniformly low.

Second, how efficiently does the education system deliver, from national to provincial and district levels? Here is also included the organisation and management in the school, and the principal's leadership.

There have been, too, mistakes in the policy environment that impact on schooling. For example, the progressivist optimism of OBE contributed to widespread failures among poorly resourced schools and teachers.

Curricula blamed for drop-out rate

2006-11-28T06:50:00.000-08:00

The way students in tertiary education were taught, and what they were taught, should be critically reviewed in light of the needs of SA’s youths and the economy, Education Minister Naledi Pandor says.

“We simply cannot continue with business as usual when we are falling short of meeting the needs of students and, in turn, the economic and social aspirations of the country,” Pandor told a conference in Pretoria of the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa yesterday.

The mismatch between traditional curricula and teaching methods, and the needs of the majority of students entering higher education, was partly to blame for the “staggering” 50% drop-out rate among university students, and the racially skewed tertiary education success rate, Pandor said.

This pointed to the need for far-reaching curriculum change and innovation. There was a wide range of factors that influenced students’ success, some of which related to the degree to which schools prepared pupils for further education, and to financial means, she said.

However, there were “a host” of factors well within the control of the higher education sector that determined success or failure, Pandor said.

She has asked the vice-chancellors of SA’s 23 tertiary education institutions to participate in a policy seminar on the issue.

“One area that I believe needs renewed attention is the use of postgraduate students in tutoring and mentoring undergraduates,” Pandor said.

“My impression is that this has been cut back in recent years at many of our universities.”

Universities and universities of technology receive most of their state funding in the form of “block grants”, leaving them free to decide what to do with the money, but a small portion of their state subsidies is in the form of “earmarked” funds.

The education department determines what earmarked funds are spent on. The higher education sector had an important role to play in developing quality education even at school level, Pandor said.

Teacher education and training, and continuous professional development, needed to be made a national priority.

The department was finalising a teacher development framework that would encourage teachers to improve their skills, and improve the social status of the profession, Pandor said.

Education standards were also parents’ responsibility, she said.

“We parents too often see teachers as full-time caregivers. We need to examine our commitment to providing support to schools.

“If our child takes a gun to school and shoots another, we must take responsibility.”

Boosting literacy

2006-11-26T08:50:00.000-08:00

Retired professionals will be called on to help the government implement a R6,1-billion national literacy campaign.

Government spokesperson Themba Maseko announced yesterday it was hoped the five-year campaign would reach 4,7-million people denied access to education and training under apartheid.

"It will target youth, women and adults with special learning needs," Maseko said.

However, the programme would be implemented only from 2008, "because a lot of planning still has to be done".

Education Minister Naledi Pandor was expected to present the cabinet with a detailed implementation plan next year.

Maseko said this plan would also address issues such as the scarcity of literature in African languages; the use of electronic media; the role of civil society; and the contribution that could be made by retired professionals such as principals, teachers, nurses and magistrates.

He said the aim was to reach as many people as possible, and an inter-ministerial committee - consisting of the ministers of education, defence, correctional services, safety and security, arts and culture, trade and industry, science and technology, and the Presidency - would be set up.

Project Literacy spokesperson Andrew Miller said although literacy had always been a presidential priority project of the new government, like adult basic education, it was always under-funded.

The sad reality

2006-11-23T12:21:00.000-08:00

A seven-year-old girl died this morning after a classroom collapsed at the Thembelihle Junior Secondary school at Baziya outside Mthatha in the Eastern Cape. The child was hit by falling mud-bricks and died on the scene. The other children were playing outside and escaped injury.

The school is one of many mud structures that were left unstable by heavy rains in recent months in the Eastern Cape. It has cracks all-over and is not suitable for occupation. Education officials and building inspectors will visit the school later today.

Pumelele Gaqa, a member of the School Governing Body, has blamed the government for dragging its feet in addressing challenges of proper infrastructure in the Transkei.

Fantasy of turning around SA education

2006-11-23T11:52:00.000-08:00

Naledi Pandor, SA’s education minister, says changes in regulations to deal with random drug testing at schools could be in place as soon as the beginning of next year.

Pandor says some schools are already using parental consent and existing regulations on searches to guide them. She was speaking ahead of a colloquium on school safety tomorrow.

Flanked by her MEC's, Pandor and her team are putting their heads together to improve SA education. Pandor said security gaps had been identified at schools and that these should be addressed with millions available to provinces.

The battle against drugs is an on-going concern for the minister: “There are schools which already have such with the agreement of parents. Therefore legislation is not the barrier; it's our will to address these challenges.”

The recent Human Rights Commission hearings into violence at schools exposed a lack of understanding from teachers, principals and the police. In the Western Cape, where 400 schools have been identified as high risk, random searches are a regular feature.

Cameron Dugmore, the Western Cape education minister, says: “I think the main purpose of this is to create a deterrent among youngsters from bringing knives or drugs to schools and the fact that people anticipate searches serves as a deterrent.”

Pandor is taking the fight against violence and drugs in schools a step further. Tomorrow, a variety of education experts and officials will meet to talk about solutions to the on-going problem. All eyes are on the minister as she leads the way in trying to turn the tide.

Teachers attacked in front of pupils

2006-11-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

Twenty-two terrified Grade Two pupils screamed as they watched two men savagely attack their teachers in their classroom at Gillitts Primary School this week.

Sharon Govender, a Grade 5 teacher, said she and Arma Reddy, a clerk, were chatting with Grade 2 teacher Shanti Naidoo in her classroom soon after a teachers' meeting.

The pupils had come into the classroom to collect their lunch for the morning break, when two men stormed in and lunged at the frightened women.

Reddy saw one of the men come towards her, flinging chairs across the classroom. She was pinned down by a group of pupils who clung to her for protection.

One attacker punched Govender in the face. She fell and was kicked and hit with tables.

"The youth pulled out a knife and reached for my chest. I kicked him away, but he managed to stab me in the head. The pupils were screaming hysterically."

Naidoo was punched and kicked by the other man.

As Reddy was pinned to the ground, she could only hear the children's screams. When she was able to get to her feet she saw Govender covered in blood. Naidoo's face was blue.

After assaulting the women, the men grabbed Naidoo and Govender's handbags from the table and ran.

"My granddaughter came out of the school crying," said a man whose eight-year-old granddaughter was in the classroom at the time.

"She witnessed the entire incident," said the grandfather, who did not want to be named.

The eight-year-old has had trouble sleeping and now wakes up screaming. Her parents have transferred her to another school because of the incident and other "on-going problems at the school".

Hillcrest police spokesperson Bheki Zondi said two men had been arrested. They will appear in the Pinetown magistrate's court.

Govender's attorney, Simi Sharma, said they were still deciding who to take legal action against the department, the school or the school governing body.

Sharma said there were deeper problems at the school.

In July, she lodged a High Court application, on Govender's behalf, for an interdict against the school's principal.

Varsity computers used for porn

2006-11-16T02:14:00.000-08:00

A 394-page forensic audit report into the affairs of the Durban University of Technology (DUT) has revealed that there are "widespread and endemic" irregularities.

Announcing the completion of the forensic audit, DUT administrator Jonathan Jansen said at a press conference on Wednesday that the forensic audit "made substantial findings of potentially corrupt, fraudulent and irregular activities".

One of the irregularities discovered was the use of the unitech's computers for the mass mailing of pornographic material.

Jansen, dean of the faculty of education of the University of Pretoria, was appointed as administrator of the unitech in August.

His appointment by national education minister Naledi Pandor followed a report released by independent assessor Professor Chadani Manganyi on June 20.

Exactly how much DUT had lost as a result of "irregular conduct" was not known.

"We still are trying to account for every cent."

He also said that "nothing in the report implicated the senior management". Students also were not involved in any of the irregular activities.

A Scorpions investigation into the institution was expected to be completed by the end of the year.

He said that previous audits had "raised red flags" but management had failed to act on the warnings.

He said the forensic findings reported "on several people helping themselves to the finance of the university across a number of departments".

He said contractors to the university often had been paid for poor work or "work not done at all".

He said he had instructed DUT management to begin the process of disciplinary, criminal and civil recovery proceedings.

Six companies contracted to do work for DUT also were being subjected to scrutiny.

"My goal is to make sure that policies and systems are obeyed," he said.

He said it was "unfortunate" that the report "overshadows the good work done" by the unitech.

He said one person who had been "implicated has already resigned".

"Steal from the university and you will get nailed."

He said that while he did not want to attribute all the problems to the merger of M L Sultan Technikon and Technikon Natal in 2002, it had created "opportunities" for corrupt officials.

Gauteng school in shambles

2006-11-14T06:08:00.000-08:00

Another Hammanskraal school is falling apart. A team from the Pretoria News visited the Mokonyama Primary school and found that no formal education is taking place there.

Only three teachers were visible at the dilapidated school in the Hammanskraal area when our team visited. They were having lunch under a tree, seemingly oblivious to the 1 300 children swinging on trees and hanging out the broken windows.

Hundreds of primary schoolchildren played around the yard unsupervised, with some climbing through the window frames as they made their way from one classroom to the next.

Mokonyama Primary School is the second problem school in Hammanskraal that Pretoria News has visited in the past two months.

Last month, our team was at the Lethamaga Middle School, where problems have since been addressed by the North West education department.

At Mokonyama, some of the children amused themselves playing games in the rented pit toilets, from which filthy water was leaking into the playground.

There was only one tap available, which the children used to make puddles of mud in which to play.

The stuffy corridors reeked. In one of the classrooms, Siyanda Mashaba, 12, was lying across some chairs, covered in flies, unattended by teachers.

She had a sore throat and was crying, but nobody came to her aid.

The tiny classrooms, three of which are rondavels cluttered with litter, are in a shocking state.

They do not have windows, tables, chalkboards or even basic stationery. The wooden floors and ceilings are pockmarked.

The electric wires dangling from the ceilings are used as "swings" by some of the younger children.

Most classrooms do not have doors. Where there are doors, there are no handles.

Most teachers at Mokonyama declined to speak to the Pretoria News. Those who did blamed the community for the sorry state of affairs.

One teacher, who refused to be named for fear of victimisation, said squatters from around the area regularly broke into the school.

"They have destroyed everything; there is nothing left for the children. We just come in and sit all day - there is no formal education.

"We know that the children are at risk in these circumstances, but there is nothing we can do," she said.

The school principal, known only as "Mr Chabalala", was not available for an interview during the visit. In a telephonic interview later, Chabalala said it was not his responsibility to ensure the safety of the children.

He said: "It is not my obligation to protect these children. It's the department of education's job. And as far as I am concerned, my school is in a good condition. What you were told about the break-ins is a lie.

"We have tiled classrooms - your accusations of broken windows are also false. You had no right to come to my school unannounced. Do not bother to call me back."

When told the Pretoria News had photographs of the school, Chabalala said it was a government building, declined to comment further and hung up abruptly.

Mokonyama Primary School is situated at the old Hammanskraal Magistrate's Court buildings. These were in a good condition when the school moved there in 2003.

Three years later, the property is in shambles and no one seems to care.

Pupils said the staff could not care less about their school. One said: "Our teachers don't care, so we don't care either."

According to the North West department of education, Moko-nyama Primary School falls under the Gauteng department of education's jurisdiction.

Spokesperson for the North West department of education Charles Raseala said: "We have had several queries about the school from the media, but that school falls under the Gauteng department. Residents in the area get their grants from the Gauteng province - a clear sign that the school also falls under that province."

Panyaza Lesufi, spokesperson of the Gauteng department of education, could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, Lethamaga Middle School has received mobile classrooms to address the teacher-learner ratio issue. The school is due for reconstruction early next year.

Lunga Ngqengelele, spokesperson for the national Department of Education said: "These matters ... are being brought to the minister's attention. We expect the provinces concerned ... to handle and address the issues urgently, as we are talking about children's futures and lives. The department will follow up on the matter."

Cape pupils underperfoming

2006-11-14T06:04:00.000-08:00

Pupils in Grades 1-9 in the Western Cape have been achieving below what is expected for the curriculum.

That's according to the annual report that Education MEC Cameron Dugmore presented to the Special Committee on Public Accounts on Friday.

"Studies conducted in the Western Cape in the last five years suggest that learner achievement is below what is expected in Grades 1-9," states the report.

Apart from falling below the expectations of the SA curriculum, it further states that these pupils have also been underperforming, even compared with other developing countries. "For example, in 2004 the WCED again assessed the reading and numeracy results of Grade 3 learners in all schools. This study found that only 38,4 percent of learners are achieving the reading and numeracy outcomes expected in Grade 3.

"The vast majority of learners are still achieving two or three years below expectation."

The department has since implemented diagnostic testing at the end of the foundation phase and intermediate phase (between Grade 3 and 6) every alternate year since 2002. This showed a high correlation with poverty and steps had been taken to correct this.

Other key focuses in the report also go into issues around the number of higher grade matric maths and science passes, literacy and numeracy and the growing population in the province.

"We cannot be happy with the fact that, of the 10 144 African learners who wrote matric in the Western Cape, only 240 learners (2.38 percent) passed accountancy in the higher grade.

"For mathematics on the higher grade, 395 learners (3.9 percent) passed and 436 learners (4.3 percent) passed physical science on the higher grade," states the report. There were similar results for coloured pupils.

"Of the African and coloured learners who did well, half of them come from either former Model C schools or independent schools. This reveals the extent of the legacies of apartheid."

With regard to literacy and numeracy, the report highlights the strategies that have been implemented following the establishment of a literacy and numeracy task team in May 2005. The task team was appointed after the release of the results of a 2004 Grade 3 study of pupils.

To combat this 510 teaching assistants were introduced.

KZN pupils lack basic knowledge

2006-11-14T05:57:00.000-08:00

Sixty-eight percent of grade six pupils in KwaZulu-Natal cannot read, write and count properly.

This is in line with the national figure of 63 percent revealed by a study compiled by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).

One of the major reasons has been linked to the failure to teach young children in their mother tongues at school.

The alarming new study found that more than half of KwaZulu-Natal's grade six pupils were not achieving the required levels in their grades due to socio-economic status, geographical location of schools and home languages.

The research also noted that those pupils whose home language was the same as the language in which they were taught obtained significantly higher scores than those who were not taught in the language used at home.

This has caused great concern among educationists as it could have a detrimental affect on the learning abilities of pupils when they reach high school.

The HSRC's study was a compilation of various reports assessing pupil performance in the country.

The HSRC's executive director of the National Education Quality Initiative, Dr Anil Kanjee said the fact that these pupils were battling with numeracy and literary skills would not make high school learning easy.

He said, "this just creates future challenges for pupils as when they enter high school, they would have to work with material that is more advanced and they might not cope. It also creates challenges for teachers in an already burdened system."

Kanjee said the survey focused on the numeracy and literacy skills of grade three to nine pupils.

Explaining the problem, he said: "Twelve years into our new democracy and learner performance levels are still very low. This is despite the range of policies introduced to improve education quality."

He said addressing the problem was difficult as there was no clear consensus on what solutions could be implemented.

"One of our goals is to work with the education department and get consensus among all key stakeholders on possible solutions for addressing the problem of low performance levels and how these solutions could be implemented," he said.

Deputy Dean for Initial Teacher Education at the University of KZN, Professor Michael Samuel said this was a national problem. He said a major reason for the figures was the fact that there was no early literacy taught in the mother tongue.

"If early literacy was conducted in the mother tongue in conjunction with the second or target language, which is generally English, we would not have this problem," he said.

Nationally and in KwaZulu-Natal, 32 percent of pupils whose home language was different to the language in which they were taught, battled to read and write. Samuel added, "The other issue is that there are not enough teachers or at least, there are very few teachers who want to teach African languages at foundation level.

"And there is not enough training nationally for these teachers," he said.

He said the challenge for the department of education was to attract people who would want to teach primary school and African languages.

The South African Democratic Teachers' Union's provincial secretary, Sipho Nkosi said the survey reflected the reality of the situation.

He said although there was a continuous revision of the Outcomes Based Education (OBE) system, adequate training of teachers was needed and that it was crucial to revise the training strategy as well.

More than bullying

2006-11-14T00:58:00.000-08:00

When high school principal Velaphi Mthembu started to get death threats and found himself living in fear of violent skirmishes, he organised a fierce counterattack to protect his students and staff.

Under a zero tolerance policy for criminal behaviour, pupils at ED Mashabane Secondary School in the poor black township of Evaton near Johannesburg were recruited to expose troublemaking peers.

Undercover police officers were invited to hide in toilet stalls and nab students who had skipped class to puff on marijuana joints, and to arrest pupils who brandished weapons like steel desk legs, broomsticks and knives.

Mthembu even ferried young offenders to the police station in the boot of his car.

"School enrolment has dropped to 600 from 900 students over the last year. Most of those [dropouts] weren't learners," said Mthembu, holding up like a trophy a cloth bag of confiscated marijuana stored in his office filing cabinet.

"They were selling dagga or here to cause trouble. When they saw I was in business with the police, they left school. It's still a dangerous place but there is more order."

The alarming level of classroom violence in South Africa mirrors a wider problem in a country with some of the world's highest rates of violent crime. Many blame the violence on inadequate policing, a wide chasm between rich and poor and the traumatic legacy of apartheid.

Teachers warn that schoolyard crime is contributing to the decline in education standards, also blamed on staff shortages, an HIV/Aids epidemic that has struck down many teachers, overcrowded classrooms and a lack of textbooks.

The problem rose to the top of the political agenda in recent weeks after a spate of fatal school stabbings where teenage pupils were both the perpetrators and victims.

In response, South African Education Minister Naledi Pandor reminded headmasters of their search-and-seize powers for weapons and illegal drugs and said she was considering tough new measures including random drug testing of pupils.

Pandor's department is in the final stage of drafting "priority" legislation to tighten security, which could propose installing metal detectors, X-ray machines, and security cameras in schools, a ministry spokesperson said.

Pandor has previously warned that the poor quality of public education will threaten future growth if not corrected.

While separate education based on race has been eliminated in democratic South Africa, the impact of apartheid-era policies still lingers, and the government has been accused of neglecting public schools, especially in poor townships.

Authorities have also struggled to offer quality education in rural areas, although school fees have been abolished in around a quarter of schools, those that are most needy.

Police reports indicate that unruly behaviour and sexual violence plague both under-resourced schools in poor areas and more elite private schools in major cities.

The South African Human Rights Commission recently held two days of public hearings into school-based violence and its final report, due early next year, is expected to stoke public debate over the Bill, judging by the number of written submissions to the commission.

This is all welcome news for teachers at Botlehadi Primary School, also in Evaton, where two 12-year-old students recently beat each other with steel rods in a fight over money.

"We notified their parents but no one came. Educators are helpless when it comes to discipline," said Clement Nkhumese, head of department at Botlehadi. "I don't think we should be using corporal punishment but current methods are ineffective."

About 10% of assaults against children in South Africa happen in schools, with the Red Cross Children's Hospital in Cape Town reporting 441 incidents between 1991 and 2002 including rape, strangulation and assault with an iron bar.

Countless other cases are believed to go unreported.

"In the grim suburbs and townships, there is little entertainment for children -- no sports clubs or playgrounds. We must make the community work together to reduce violence," said Sebastian van As, of the hospital's trauma unit.

Increased parental and community involvement in the lives of children and peer mentorship programmes could create a more productive learning environment, he said.

Van As is among those who warn stepped-up security could backfire, arguing that pupils who are expelled are at greater risk of delinquency and that lockdowns only heighten anxiety among students.

"We worry about responding to this with police measures. Children need a safer learning environment not one of fear," said Penny Dlamini, of the Johannesburg-based Soul City Institute, which focuses on youth issues.

But some who have been victims of school violence say a soft touch will never work.

Alvaro Manana (16) was threatened with knives and verbally abused until he fought back.

"It's not right that people don't feel safe when all they want do is learn," he said.

Fed-up pupils take revenge on armed muggers

2006-11-10T01:12:00.000-08:00

SCHOOLCHILDREN turned on their muggers in an East London suburb, beating one of the men to a pulp.

“It was mob justice – they clobbered the man,” said their principal, Ben Chetty.

The pupils – from East London High School – retaliated following a last-straw incident after being harassed regularly by muggers over the last two years.

Five men were arrested in Braelynn – one caught by principal Chetty.

The events that led to a man lying in Chetty’s office bruised and bleeding began two weeks ago when a Grade 8 pupil was threatened by three armed men on his way home.

“One grabbed me by the belt and started looking for money. When I held onto my cellphone he tried to stab me,” he said.

The pupil handed over his cellphone and watched the men run away with it.

A week later, he was on his way home with two friends after writing an exam when the same men approached them.

“I recognised them, so we ran back and told our friends,” said the pupil..

On hearing the news, a gang of students charged out of the school gates in hot pursuit.

Chetty heard the commotion and followed in his car.

“It is my job to look after my children,” he said. “I don’t want them to become statistics.”

Chetty succeeded in apprehending one of the men and the group of schoolchildren ran down another.

On catching him, they dealt out their own street justice.

“The guys laid into him – he did not have a chance,” said another of the boys who had been threatened earlier.

Chetty said he did not approve of people taking the law into their own hands, and intervened to protect him.

And the man was only too grateful to escape to the relative safety of the principal’s office.

He lay on the floor with his head in his hands, bleeding from several places until the police arrived.

The three men were arrested on a charge of robbery using a weapon.

Later, two men were caught and arrested by police.

The pupil, whose school shirt was dirtied and specked with blood, laid a charge against the men at Duncan Village Police Station.

Neither he nor Chetty has heard from the police since. “We have had no communication with the cops since,” said Chetty.

Police spokesperson Captain Stephen Marais said the men had appeared already in court. But whether they had been released on bail was not clear as officers at Duncan Village Police Station were still waiting to receive the relevant dockets from the court.

Four Grade 9 girls said they had also been accosted by the three men the day before they were arrested. They approached them as they went home from school, said one of the girls.

“They pulled out knives and said they were going to rob us, but we ran for our lives,” she said.

Later, the four girls were among a large angry crowd that gathered outside the school when the police came to arrest the men last Wednesday.

“It is about time they felt what it is like to be scared,” said one of the girls.

Chetty said the situation had improved since the arrests, and that children felt safer walking home. The men had not returned.

“I hope they learned their lesson from these kids,” he said.

Breeding grounds for criminals

2006-11-08T04:42:00.000-08:00

A Pretoria primary school pupil is fighting for his life in a city hospital after being stabbed during a fight on the school grounds.

Bonga Mlambo, 13, who attends Hamilton Primary School in Visagie Street, was stabbed three times in the chest and back with a serrated kitchen knife after he and a group of friends began teasing a 14-year-old boy from Pretoria Technical High School.

The knife narrowly missed his heart, but is believed to have punctured several vital organs, including his spleen, intestines and a kidney.

The attack comes less than two days after Gauteng education MEC Angie Motshekga said urgent steps needed to be taken to prevent the province's schools from being turned into "breeding grounds for criminals".

It also comes less than two weeks after a man was stabbed while trying to rescue his brother in a fight outside Lyttelton Manor High School.

It is believed that Bonga and his friends had been teasing the boy since last week.

The alleged teenage attacker was arrested by a school security guard as he tried to flee.

Irate teachers were seen screaming and manhandling several of Bonga's friends.

A teacher, when asked about the attack, said the school had done nothing wrong and it was not their responsibility to "keep an eye on the children day and night". She declined to give her name.

The school principal, Conrad Myburgh, declined to comment. "You know the department's policy; now get out of my school."

William Phalatse, a friend of Bonga's, said he was afraid his friend would die. "He had blood all over him. He could not breathe and was coughing up blood. I was really scared, especially when he began crying for his mother," said William.

William admitted that they had been teasing the teenager, "but we were just having fun. We were not being nasty and were not hurting him. I don't know why he stabbed Bonga."

Tshepo Rampedi, whose 11-year-old brother Thabiso attends the school, said he feared for his brother's life. "It is ridiculous that something like this happens. Where are the teachers, principal and security guards? What exactly are they doing? Why are they not ensuring that children are safe?" he asked.

Jacob Naledi, who was attending a prospective parents' meeting at the school when the attack happened, said he was seriously reconsidering sending his son there. "If this kind of thing is happening then I am definitely going to reconsider whether I should allow my son, Reagile, to attend the school. I will not if the school cannot guarantee my child's safety," he said.

Another parent, who asked not to be named, said he did not feel that his children were safe at school. "I don't think the school is able to protect our children. I am very concerned and think that they have to do something drastic to improve safety at the school," he said.

Police spokesperson Constable Brenda Kgafela confirmed the attack, adding that the teenage boy had been arrested by a school security guard.

She said the boy, whose father is a police inspector at the Pretoria Central police station, had been released into his parents' custody.

"At this stage, the boy, who was slightly injured in the fight, has not been charged," she said, adding that he would be charged with assault with the intent to commit grievous bodily harm.

Kgafela said Bonga's parents had taken him to a city hospital.

On hearing about the attack, Gauteng education spokesperson Panyaza Lesufi reacted with: "Oh God, not again."

Reassuring the province's parents that their children were safe, Lesufi said the department would never surrender to anarchy.

"When we begin taking harsh steps against criminal schoolchildren, we hope that parents of these children will understand," he said, referring to the department's planned programme to eradicate violence in schools.

The programme, due to be launched in January, could see children suspected of being involved in violence being expelled before police investigations are concluded.

"We are determined to stop school violence once and for all," he said.

Politicians to blame for school violence

2006-11-08T01:46:00.000-08:00

Learners at the Thusong School in Kagiso on the West Rand told Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, the public service and administration minister, when inquiring about violence in schools, that politicians were partly to blame for the situation.

Fraser-Moleketi got more than she bargained for during a surprise visit to the school. Thapelo Molete, a Grade eight learner, told the minister that violence in schools was a symptom of corruption trickling down from high ranking government officials to learners.

Molete said the reason that most of the students are violent is because there are some corrupt ministers in that Cabinet. "So you might find that if there are corrupt ministers in the Cabinet, the students are trying to be their examples as corrupt.

African identity at universities

2006-11-08T01:40:00.000-08:00

Education Minister Naledi Pandor has called on African universities to derive their identity and inspiration from African culture.

"We need African universities that derive their identity and inspiration from African cultural experiences and reflect the needs of the African people," the minister said during the Cradle of Language Conference at the University of Stellenbosch.

Ms Pandor said universities had an important role to play in the creation and understanding of identities.

The conference brought together scientists, archaeologists, linguists, palaeontologists, geneticists, anthropologists and historians from around the world to discuss the emergence of language in Africa.

"Over the years, African universities have made important advances in knowledge about Africa and have achieved significant transformation in key areas of research and content of courses in the academic disciplines, especially in humanities, social sciences, and the professions.

"However, what remains a challenge is for our universities to define a clear African perspective on developmental processes," she said.

The minister said the success of a university should be measured in terms of a meaningful engagement with diverse social and cultural worlds.

She said she was pleased the conference was taking place at an important time when South Africa was confronting challenges posed by inherited languages and their impact on indigenous languages.

"Government's concern about the national identity and academic progress through national languages has received a cool reception from many of our people who claim access to international languages," she said.

Minister Pandor noted that the delegates' views on the place of indigenous languages in post-colonial societies and the impact of this on Africa would be of interest.

She told delegates to ensure that the conference was able to indicate where and when human language originated, and the possible implications of this for the African people.

"Certainly, language is a unique hallmark of the human species. Although many species can communicate in limited ways about things that are physically present, only humans can construct a full narrative characterisation of occurring events," she said.

Pregnant schoolgirls not exempt from exams

2006-11-05T09:21:00.000-08:00

If pregnant schoolgirls are given maternity leave, they should not be exempted from doing their school work and writing exams, the Western Cape education department has said.

The department remained committed to ensuring that pregnant schoolgirls were given appropriate support and a chance to continue their schooling, spokesperson Gert Witbooi said.

They should not be stigmatised, he said. Pupils who fell pregnant had the right to human dignity and equality and should be treated as sensitively as those with special needs. Parents should play a more active role in their children's sexual education. It was best that pupils abstain from sexual activity, Witbooi said.

The department was commenting on a proposal, made at a recent summit in Pietermaritzburg on teenage pregnancy, that pregnant schoolgirls be given maternity leave.

Black mark for violence

2006-11-01T07:11:00.000-08:00

SPECIALISTS in school violence arrived in King William’s Town yesterday to try to save a school that is tearing itself apart.

Order has broken down so badly at Khumbulani High School in Tyhusha that it is listed as the most dangerous school in the province and among nine pinpointed nationally.

“Educators are literally afraid of learners who carry dangerous weapons at school,” says a report compiled by the provincial Education Department.

And parents have even resorted to arming themselves when they take their children to school, the Dispatch has learned.

Khumbulani’s former principal, Mhleli Sowazi, said the school – built 30 years ago by a community with “the hope of bringing light to those who craved education” – was being destroyed by its own pupils who “come to school drunk, and fight on the grounds” and parents who “lack interest in their children’s education”.

But mostly, he said, “it’s our children who have destroyed this school”.

The violence experts were dispatched by Education Minister Naledi Pandor following a countrywide investigation into schoolyard violence.

The team led by Dr Charles Wilson, a specialist from the school violence directorate based in Pretoria, would attempt to find what could be done to remedy the situation, said the minister’s spokesperson Lunga Ngqengelele.

Provincial Education Department spokesperson Loyiso Pulumani said 37 schools were identified as violence-prone in the province, but there could be more, as only six of the 23 districts had responded to the survey.

The report reveals that, since 2004, at least five pupils have been murdered by their school mates on school premises in the Eastern Cape.

Included was a pupil at Khumbulani who was stabbed to death by an older boy during morning assembly.

The report says police had to be called in regularly to stop faction fights between rival groups from two villages – usually ahead of the June and December circumcision season.

According to the report, ooSosuthu (initiates-to-be) go to school armed and ready to fight.

A staff member says she watched helplessly when rival “gangs” arrived at school armed with pangas and knives.

“When you look at the boys as they come into the gate, you can see that they are up to something. The weapons are sometimes even visible from underneath their blazers.”

A parent described watching in horror as her own son walked up to a Grade 10 pupil during a school assembly and stabbed him.

“I do not know what the world has come to,” said the woman, tears rolling down her face. “I was afraid to even confront my own son because I did not know that he was capable of doing such a thing.”

During a visit only five of the 107 pupils present, and they were sitting on a verandah. Inside, there were holes in the wooden floors of the filthy classrooms, desks were packed into corners and broken chairs were scattered around. All the windows were broken.

Principal Collin Majorman refused to comment other than to say that all incidents of violence had been referred to King William’s Town police.

Sowazi, who was the school’s first principal and retired in 1996, told how he and a group of parents armed themselves and went to the school when rival groups started fighting in June last year.

“We had no choice but to go and protect our children,” he said. “Police came to the rescue and stopped the fight.”

He was heartbroken that a school that had once achieved an 80 percent matric pass rate was now known for the wrong reasons. Only 7 percent – four of 54 matriculants – passed in 2004, and 12 percent last year.

Reading is not taught in schools

2006-10-31T00:37:00.000-08:00

The Gauteng education department has appointed READ Educational Trust to train Gauteng teachers on methods to improve literacy in the province’s schools.

It has been established that reading is not taught in many schools nationally.

Palesa Tyobeka, national education department deputy director of general education and training, wrote an open letter to primary-school pupils in August urging them to ensure teachers taught them how to read.

The national department’s systemic evaluation of reading skills revealed that only 39% of Gauteng’s grade three pupils were literate at the appropriate grade level.

The five-year READ programme kicked off with pilot projects in 24 schools, two in each of Gauteng’s education districts, READ spokeswoman Lizelle Langford said yesterday. The programme would be monitored and evaluated by JET Education Services, a nongovernmental organisation.

The accelerated programme for language, literacy and communication would look at how the teachers used the outcomes-based education (OBE) method to teach reading and show them how to develop and improve their methods, READ national director Cynthia Hugo said.

Children needed a structured, systematic reading programme to acquire the skills needed to read effectively, and if used properly, OBE’s “balanced literacy programme” was effective, she said.

The method incorporates several approaches to teaching children how to read and acknowledges that pupils need to use multiple strategies.

“You don’t go to people and say, ‘What you are doing is wrong and what I am doing is right’. You work with what they are doing right ... It’s not the method (that is a problem) but how the teacher manages the method,” Hugo said.

The method, which READ uses in its own work, has a good track record. The trust has used it in a national project that reached 908 schools, 12000 teachers and 1-million pupils a year from 2000 to 2004.

The programme has achieved a 19,7% improvement in reading ability and a 16,7% improvement in writing skills.

According to a research paper on the programme, this has a knock-on effect on pupils’ numeracy levels.

The programme uses all four language skills — reading, writing, speaking and listening — to teach reading.

“We believe in the explicit teaching of reading skills. That’s using sounds, grammatical structure ... children have got to be able to decode the text and pronounce the words,” Hugo said.

READ’s work in South African schools has shown that many teachers have had little in-service training since graduating.

Crisis feared as teacher shortages rise

2006-10-29T11:31:00.000-08:00

Teacher shortage levels are increasing as less and less people are joining the teaching profession.

Teacher unions have warned of a future classroom crisis if more teachers are not trained. An estimated 20 000 teachers leave the profession each year, but only 6 000 newly trained teachers enter the profession.

Naledi Pandor, the education minister, and Trevor Manuel, the finance minister, has announced measures to try and turn the tide.

However, the way the profession is viewed severely impacts on the number of individuals entering the field. Ezra Ramasehla, who has been a teacher for 30 years, says young people are unenthusiastic about teaching because it does not have high financial rewards.

The education department has already mentioned initiatives that will see money being spent on upgrading existing teachers, and bursaries to attract youngsters.

Professionals have welcomed this development.

If we don't fix skills mismatch, we will all sink

2006-10-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

One-million job vacancies and four-million unemployed people - that, says Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, is one of the key challenges South Africa is facing 12 years into democracy.

Manuel said while he was not holding out a "right-to-work banner", it was clear there was a skills mismatch that had to be dealt with. "If we do not fix this, we'll all sink together," he warned.

Manuel said he was not criticising the Education Department or Naledi Pandor, its minister, who he said was doing a "good job", but the education system as it stood was not producing the right results.

To encourage a better match between education outcomes and what was required by universities and employers, Manuel said more money would be poured into ensuring that competent people were brought into the education system and that the teaching of science and mathematics was upgraded.

But, he said, there was a need to monitor that this money was well spent and the desired outcomes achieved. "We must ... put pressure on underperforming schools," he said. This was the only way to ensure a "cadre of people entered the labour market better able to compete".

The dire state of education was highlighted last week in the Treasury's provincial budgets and expenditure review for the period 2002 to 2009. According to these reports, only 17% of matric candidates achieved the right to go to university.

The Eastern Cape was the lowest with 8.8%; the Western Cape led the pack with just over one in four candidates doing well enough to study at university. Maths and science matric hopefuls fared even worse. Only 8.7% - one in 12 - of the 26 383 students who wrote mathematics on higher grade and one in six, or 16.5%, of the 29 965 who wrote physical science on higher grade, passed.

These passes are essential for university entrance for many professions South Africa needs badly - such as engineering.

Unions not impressed

2006-10-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

Teachers unions have poured cold water on Education Minister Naledi Pandor's proposal to send unruly pupils back home to their parents for a short period.

Pandor first mooted the idea last week as one of the measures to combat the escalating number of violent incidents in schools.

In the past two weeks alone, three boys have been stabbed while still on school premises, and two have died of their wounds.

Pandor said she was considering amendments to legislation that would allow for schools to send unruly pupils back home to their parents or guardians for a short time. Schools would then be obliged to send learning materials to those children.

Pandor admitted that in some cases greater intervention was required by the Education Department and that she would be acting on problematic schools in the next few weeks.

A spokesperson for the South African Democratic Teachers Union, Thulas Nxesi, did not support Pandor's proposal that schools should be allowed to send troublesome children into the care of their parents or guardians.

He said the union was not interested in quick-fix solutions and violence in schools was linked to broader social ills such as unemployment, poverty and crime.

"We have to start talking about positive campaigns and for a code of conduct for everybody in the school community and educational projects on drug abuse. Schools need to be supported by counsellors and psychologists, who are not there at the moment," said Nxesi.

He dismissed the idea of sending children back home because "some of them don't even have parents".

He said delinquent pupils should instead be put in special diversion programmes. "We want youth centres with highly trained counsellors to rehabilitate children."

Teen pregnancies are fashionable

2006-10-25T06:34:00.000-07:00

Teenage pregnancies in schools are rising every year, with the latest statistics showing that pregnancy as a result of sexual abuse was more and more prevalent.

Multiple reasons for the growing number of pregnant teenage girls in schools were heard at a department of education provincial summit on the topic held in Pietermaritzburg.

Research on teenage pregnancies at 120 schools was presented at the summit, which revealed that factors included peer pressure, poverty and media influence.

The survey showed that 887 girls had fallen pregnant in 2006. In 2005 the figure was 727 teen pregnancies and in 2004, 632. In 2004, 43 girls reported being pregnant because of sexual abuse. In 2006, the figure had risen to 60.

The age at which most girls fell pregnant was 16. Girls as young as 11 were found to be pregnant.

Goodness Buthelezi, a teacher at the Kuneningi Primary farm school in Pongola, said she had found that girls between the ages of 11 and 14 had become embroiled in love affairs. "They then fall pregnant."

She said parents, who often worked long hours, were unavailable to supervise their children. She said the department needed to step in with more specialised education for the girls to prevent pregnancies.

The report also found that poverty led to teenage pregnancies. "In most cases parents are unemployed and therefore they turn a blind eye when the girl is impregnated by a working partner who will in turn become a breadwinner for the family."

Peer pressure contributed too and girls became pregnant to conform with the norm of being sexually active.

"Drug addiction and having a baby while still at school were found to be fashionable."

Girls interviewed for the survey complained that clinic staff were intimidating and made it difficult to collect condoms and contraceptive pills.

And the media did not escape blame, with the report finding that easy access to pornographic and adult television programmes and explicit multimedia text messages and Internet content contributed to the increase.

Life skills programmes at schools sometimes tended to produce the opposite behaviour, encouraging teenagers to experiment with drugs and unsafe sex.

Policy that allowed pregnant girls to continue attending school was also held responsible for the rise in pregnancies, as girls were no longer expelled and did not have to face the threat of an end to their school days.

The summit included discussions on issues raised during the research, such as cultural, religious, financial and other influences on teenage pregnancy, as well as the role of schools.

Pretoria school is a gangland

2006-10-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

Lyttelton Manor High School is becoming a "gangland", according to concerned parents.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared for the safety of their children, they said several incidents proved the school was becoming more and more unsafe.

Motheti Madityana, 29, was stabbed during a fight, allegedly by a Grade 9 pupil. The fight was allegedly over money and drugs.

Madityana, said to be the brother of one of the pupils who attends the school, is in the Pretoria Academic Hospital in a stable condition.

Police are investigating the attack. No arrests have been made.

There was a strong police presence at the school, but principal Patricia Malherbe refused to speak to the press.

Members of the parents' association also said they had been instructed not to speak to the media.

Pupils claimed teachers had confiscated copies of the Pretoria News, which contained an article on the stabbing.

But parents have lashed out at the principal's lack of communication, saying the violent incident was due to Malherbe's failure to acknowledge the escalating lack of discipline at the Centurion high school.

Two months ago a 12-year-old primary school pupil was standing at the gates of the high school chatting with friends when her cellphone was grabbed by an older, uniformed, high school pupil.

The alleged thief and a uniformed friend ran down the street before being caught by a passing postal service worker, who helped recover the cellphone for the girl.

The father of the child laid charges of theft and assault against the pupil who snatched the phone. But questioned by the Lyttelton police, the pupil said he was playing with the girl and would have returned the phone.

This father of three said his youngest daughter, due to transfer to Lyttelton Manor High School to complete her higher education in 2007, was still traumatised by the incident and receiving counselling.

He said police had made no arrests and the school principal had told him two months ago that she would contact him with new information. To date he has not been contacted and does not know if the alleged thief is still attending Lyttelton Manor High School or not.

"My daughter has refused to attend that school in 2007 and I am forced to send her to a private school along with her older sister, who is currently at Lyttelton."

Problems at the school started emerging only over the past two years, he said. "It's turning into a gangland," he said. "There is definitely a township gangster element entering the school and a total breakdown in discipline."

He said there was no respect, no authority and his children were not getting a good education because classes were daily disrupted by teachers walking out due to unruly pupils. He suggested metal detectors be placed at the school entrance.

Another father of two said he would also be investing in private school education for his children after his words of caution to the school principal fell on deaf ears.

In July he approached Malherbe, who has been principal for over 10 years, about the escalating problems at the school after he had caught his two children aged 13 and 18 smoking dagga at home.

"My children told me they could easily buy drugs from fellow pupils at the school who acted as dealers and that the drugs were sold in matchboxes," he said.

His children also told him that there was one pupil who was the ringleader.

Upon meeting he principal, the father said he was disappointed that Malherbe said there was not much she could do.

His children had begged him not to do or say anything, he said, because their lives were being threatened, but when he relayed their fears to the principal he was told nothing could happen while they were in school.

A mother of a Grade 11 pupil said she was shocked to learn that her son was involved with drugs when she was called to the school in July.

"Teachers had found drugs on my son and called the police," she said. "It was only then that I realised it was an ongoing problem."

She also learned that her 17-year-old son had been skipping classes regularly. "The teachers can't be doing their jobs properly if I wasn't informed of him bunking school before then," she said.

The mother said she had already explored many solutions to the problem, such as moving her son to a new school.

However, she felt it would disrupt his education as he was close to matriculating.

She had several problems in trying to communicate with the school, she said, and was told on Tuesday that the principal would send out a letter regarding the stabbing incident within the next few weeks.

"That is wrong, because parents need to know what's happening. She should have called a meeting.

"I'm concerned because I don't know whether my son is going to live till matric," said the mother.

Her son was terrified of drug dealers at the school, she said, and afraid to give her any information on them.

Both this mother and the father of the 13-year-old and 18-year-old children have been forced to test their children for drugs, search them and send them for counselling.

They claimed many other parents of Lyttelton Manor High School pupils were in the same position.

Security around the school was increased, as evidenced by the presence of Tshwane Metro Police dog unit members, the SAPS and hired security.

Pupils standing outside the gates told the Pretoria News that they had not been given any information or talks about the stabbing incident.

Another pupil said he was scared to go to school. Pupils said police had conducted random searches of pupils suspected to have been involved in the fight and several boys who had been part of the fight arrived at the school with their parents.

Principal incited violence

2006-10-25T06:22:00.000-07:00

The principal of the Ithutheng Trust school in Kliptown, Soweto, appeared briefly in the Protea magistrate's court on charges of public violence and malicious damage to property.

Jackie Maarohanye handed herself over to police and shortly after appeared in court she was released from custody and her case postponed to November 8.

Police issued a warrant for Maarohanye's arrest on October 10 after pupils from her school took to the streets, burning tyres and blocking roads.

They were protesting against the police's failure to solve the death of a fellow pupil in a fire at the trust school. A 19-year-old pupil died in the fire and two others - also young men - escaped the blaze.

Maarohanye allegedly insisted that a hut on the premises of the trust was petrol bombed.

The two survivors told the police that on the night in question, they went to bed with a burning brazier in the hut.

Forensic reports suggested no proof of a petrol bomb.

Police spokesperson Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said Maarohanye was "instrumental" in the protest by the pupils and that is why she was arrested.

"These violent protests left five people injured and property damaged. A resident's house was also broken into and several items stolen and burned," Martins-Engelbrecht said.

Metal detectors must be used at schools

2006-10-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

If metal detectors are necessary in certain schools to guard the safety of pupils, they must be used, the Democratic Alliance said.

DA education spokesperson David Quail said there had been over 20 deaths in schools this year, and that media statements of shock and sympathy from the department were not enough to solve the problem.

"Urgent actions are necessary. Schools must be given more support to prevent more fatalities. National and provincial governments must find emergency funds," Quail said.

A 14-year-old Grade 7 pupil stabbed a 13-year-old Grade 6 pupil at Edleen Primary School in Kempton Park.

The pupil was rushed to hospital.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Naledi Pandor met the Council of Education Ministers (CEM) in Cape Town to discuss safety in schools.

The minister's spokesperson, Lunga Ngqengelele, said Pandor and the council were aware of the apparent erosion of discipline in some schools and certain measures were put in place.

About R5-million would be given to each province for focused interventions.

A national draft code of conduct would also be made available to all schools and it will be published visibly in schools.

Ngqengelele said schools will be encouraged to set up safety committees and that guidelines on random drug testing within constitutional limits will be drawn up in the next few weeks.

School violence spiralling out of control

2006-10-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

School violence escalated this week with several pupils seriously injured in incidents around Gauteng and Mpumalanga.

On Monday, two pupils were hacked at by fellow pupils at Sibukosethu High School at Sandriver Trust in Hazyview, Mpumalanga.

School principal Fana Nkabinde said he was in his office at about 8.30am when he saw a pupil running past his window carrying an axe. He left his office and found two pupils - one with an axe and one with a sickle - hacking at a pupil.

He and a teacher grabbed the pair and the victim was rushed to a nearby clinic in a bakkie.

As teachers were questioning the attackers, someone rushed in to say there was another pupil lying injured on the school grounds.

"His hand had been chopped and was bleeding profusely," said Nkabinde.

He was rushed to the local clinic and was transferred to Rob Ferreira Hospital, where he underwent surgery this morning on his hands.

The assailants - who told Nkabinde they had been fighting over an incident during a soccer match at the weekend - were arrested.

All the involved pupils are aged between 17 and 19 and are in grades 8 and 9.

Nkabinde said the violent incident was the third at the school since last year. The other two were stabbing incidents.

Meanwhile, the Joburg metro police raided Forest High School, just weeks after Nkosana Mbhele, 19, was stabbed to death by a fellow learner.

The surprise inspection, which began shortly after the pupils had gone into their classes, yielded drugs and drug paraphernalia.

A 13-year-old was rushed to hospital after he was stabbed by a fellow pupil at Edleen Primary School in Kempton Park.

"It's disturbing because all along it's been taking place in high schools and this time it is primary school pupils," said Gauteng education department spokesperson Panyaza Lesufi.

The boy was allegedly stabbed while waiting for his transport outside the school.

"He was bleeding quite badly when his parents came and rushed him to the hospital," Lesufi said.

Police Superintendent Eugene Opperman confirmed the incident on Monday and said the whereabouts of the suspect were unknown.

A Pretoria man was stabbed in the chest and back after becoming involved in a school gang fight at Lyttelton Manor High.

Motheti Madityana, 29, - said to be the brother of a pupil at the school - was reportedly stabbed while trying to help his brother.

Several pupils said the fight had been building since a group of about 14 students started arguing.

A Grade 10 boy, who asked not to be named, said that the fight had continued with two of the boys threatening to "hurt and kill" another boy, who is in Grade 8.

"They were fighting over money and drugs, which one of the boys did not want to pay for.

"When the boy said he was not going to give them money, two boys from another gang told him they would kill him," he said. The boy who had been threatened had asked his brother, Madityana, to meet him after school.

As the boy walked towards his brother, he was pushed to the ground by at least five other pupils.

"They were hitting and kicking him and the boy's brother ran over to help," he said. As he tried to pull his brother free, he was stabbed.

Madityana was said to be in a serious but stable condition at Pretoria Academic hospital.

In another instance of troubled youth, a 15-year-old boy from the Heidelberg School of Industries hanged himself in a police cell at the weekend after he was arrested for stealing a television set.

An inquest docket has been opened.

At Forest High this morning, some dagga wrapped in telephone directory paper was found stashed under a bin a few metres from where Mbhele was killed.

Officers went from class to class, where sniffer dogs were used to search for concealed weapons and drugs in pupils' bags.

Metro police Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar said they suspected pupils were using drugs and carrying weapons to school after the stabbing incident.

"A pupil who stabbed another one had a knife and there's a possibility that other pupils could be carrying knives as well. We wanted to come when they were not expecting us," Minnaar said.

While dogs sniffed around their classes, pupils seemed amused at their handlers as they coached them.

The dogs were also taken to the school sports fields, where the deputy principal Johan Visser said pupils usually used a disused kiosk to smoke.

The words "dagga is lekker" have been scribbled across the kiosk, while inside it reeks of urine and is littered with empty alcohol bottles.

Minnaar said the metro police would conduct more raids at other schools because "prevention is better than cure".

Our schools have been turned into war zones and shelters for criminals

2006-10-24T02:47:00.000-07:00

The Young Communist League (YCL) called on Minister of Education Naledi Pandor to involve other structures within the teaching profession to end the violence in schools. “We are worried that our schools have been turned into bloodbath war zones and shelters for criminal activities,” YCL spokesman Castro Ngobese said.

The YCL was responding to the latest incident of school violence in which Zimisele Sithole, 20, was stabbed by a fellow pupil at Mdingi High School in Donnybrook, KwaZulu-Natal.

The YCL called on Pandor to convene an urgent summit to discuss school violence, its causes, effects and consequences. The summit should draw from pupils’ representative bodies, teacher unions, parents’ bodies, youth formations and the media.

The YCL also said Community Policing Forums needed to be revived to assist with the problem.
Last week Pandor said South Africa needed to “respond with vigour to deny violence a permanent place in education.

“I am also considering amending the legislation for schools so far as discipline is concerned to make provision for severely disruptive children,” she said. These provisions included guidance and support as well as allowing schools to surrender troublesome children into the care of their parents for a short period.

“These acts or the degree of violence in schools are a reflection of how our society has become,” said Ngobese.

House punishment will boost delinquents

2006-10-22T12:54:00.000-07:00

The South African Parents Association says national Education Minister's Naledi Pandor's proposal of placing unruly pupils under temporary "house arrest" is an ideal opportunity for delinquent pupils to stay at home and commit more crimes.

Pandor spoke of her intentions to act on problematic schools. This is in light of frequent incidents of violence and death at schools.

Thabiso Dlamini, 18, stabbed Zimisile Sithole, 20, to death at the Mdingi High School, near Ixopo, with a knife after an argument.

An Eastern Cape pupil was in hospital after he was stabbed by a fellow pupil during a class break. A 14-year-old Gauteng pupil appeared in court this week for stabbing fellow pupil Simon Nkosana Mbhele, 19, to death.

"After family, schools are the most important social institution for people. They influence the prospects of youth and shape their intellect and future character. For these reasons, schools should be safe places. If schools are no longer regarded as safe places, then as a community we have failed our children," said the education minister in a media statement.

Pandor said teachers would be given the power to remove unruly pupils from their classrooms and put the onus on parents and caregivers to monitor their children's behaviour while under house arrest. She said she could not allow some pupils to completely disrupt the running of the schools and the learning opportunity for others. Pandor is also considering establishing support centres for "particularly problematic pupils".

Sayad Rajack, KwaZulu-Natal Chairman of the South African Parents Association, said that Pandor's idea was not properly thought out.

"Unruly pupils would take any opportunity to stay at home. For example, a school had a problem with late comers so, as a solution, the school gates were closed after a certain time. This did not work because pupils deliberately arrived at school late. There is no punitive solution. The department needs to apply the strong arm of the law so that when a pupil's name is marked, parents may wake up to the fact that their child is a delinquent," said Rajack.

Easy Afrikaans chosen over African languages

2006-10-22T11:25:00.000-07:00

Pupils are ditching indigenous African languages as second-language subjects in favour of Afrikaans, which they find easier to learn.

Although pupils have not been compelled to take Afrikaans or English since 1997, they still prefer to study these languages instead of African indigenous languages.

Even Zulu-speaking pupils at some of the country’s top private and former Model C schools are forsaking their mother tongue and taking Afrikaans as a second language, English being their “first-language” choice.

Out of the 558393 pupils writing matric this year, only 9788 will sit exams in indigenous African languages as a second language. The majority, 266408, have opted for Afrikaans. Of those taking an African second language, most — 7428 — have chosen Zulu.

When it comes to first languages, 130611 matrics are writing Zulu this year, and 80665 will sit English at the same level. A total of 78402 candidates will write Xhosa and 72725 Sepedi as a first language. A total of 54204 will write Afrikaans as a first language.

Zulu subject advisers and teachers are adamant that their language is not difficult. Instead, they accuse some schools of deliberately sidelining Zulu by not offering it in the curriculum or only offering it as a seventh subject taught outside school hours.

But eminent Zulu academics conceded that Zulu grammar could be “problematic” for second-language speakers.

A University of KwaZulu-Natal deputy dean, Professor Sihawu Ngubane, said: “In isiZulu, the morphology [the form of words] is difficult. The phonetics make it very difficult as well as the syntax [sentence construction].”

Ngubane said pupils, however, would not have difficulty studying sections on Zulu oral traditions, folklore and poetry.

Agreeing that Zulu grammar was “more complicated”, Msawakhe Hlengwa, deputy chairman of the isiZulu National Language Body, said: “You can’t finish a paragraph [in Zulu] without using an idiom. If you don’t understand the idioms and proverbs embedded in the language, you will miss the message.”

Despite the new Grade 10 curriculum implemented at the beginning of the year — offering pupils a choice of the 11 official languages as second languages — many KwaZulu-Natal schools are still limiting pupil choice to Afrikaans.

A senior official in the Zulu subject advisory committee in KwaZulu-Natal said some schools devised a curriculum that suited the teachers. “They will say, ‘We don’t have teachers to teach Zulu, so how can we offer it?’”

Professor Crain Soudien, director of the School of Education at the University of Cape Town, said the high number of pupils writing English as a first language reflected the aspirations that parents had for their children.

“Many people are moving their children’s education away from mother tongue to English. It’s a worrying trend, but is in keeping with the growth of the black middle class, who want their children to be educated in English.”

Penny Vinjevold, the Education Department’s deputy director-general for further education and training, said: “Obviously, nobody is going to take an indigenous African language as a second language without having done it at primary school.”

She said more needed to be done “to encourage learners and schools to offer another additional language rather than only Afrikaans”.

He should not have been in that area of the school anyway

2006-10-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

Despite recent announcements by the Department of Education that security at schools will be improved, a local high school pupil was attacked inside his school’s premises.

Lieb Koekemoer (grade 11) was attacked and robbed in the school premises during a break at Silverton Hoërskool.

Criminals can gain easy access to the school’s premises because of holes in the fence and gates that remain open.

Kobus Koekemoer, Lieb’s dad, is concerned that nothing was done afterwards to prevent a similar incident from happening again. “My son was at school when a group of men climbed through the holes in the fence and attacked him. They stole his cellphone, watch and the money he had on him to pay his school fees,” says Kobus.

“My children are my greatest priority but some gates at school are left open permanently and the holes in the fence have not been repaired. How are the pupils supposed to feel safe?. My son reported the incident immediately to the principal. He said there is nothing he can do and that my son should not have been in that area of the school anyway. He did not even contact me to let me know what had happened.”

The principal of the school, James Wright, says the safety of pupils is of main concern
“We have a policy that certain areas are designated to pupils at certain times so we know they will be safe. We are repairing the holes in the fence.

At the moment the matrics are writing exams. One of the gates remain open at certain times to allow the pupils to enter and leave the premises,” says James.

Violence in schools countrywide is on the increase and Kobus points out that his son has previously also been attacked at school. On a previous occasion his son was beaten with a belt outside the school’s office. He still bears the scars from that incident.

In a speech earlier this year the Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor, announced new school security measures like closed-circuit television cameras and floodlights.

Millions invested in extra maths amount to zero

2006-10-20T06:02:00.000-07:00

The millions of rands SA had spent on programmes aimed at improving pupils’ mathematics marks had been largely wasted as the programmes had produced little improvement in pupil prowess or teacher competence, the Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa (Isasa) said.

Inadequate mathematics and science education remained the largest obstacle to black advancement, and only 50% of schools offered higher grade mathematics, said Isasa executive director Dr Jane Hofmeyr.

Isasa has joined forces with the education department in attempting to remedy this.

The two are running complementary projects aimed at doubling the number of matriculants with mathematics passes over the next five years.

Instead of ploughing money and expertise into SA’s poorest-performing schools, as had been done previously, both projects would work with schools that were already producing pupils with good mathematics marks.

This would improve capacity, said Hofmeyr and the education department’s Penny Vinjevold, deputy-director general of further education and training.

“We are targeting schools with capacity. We cannot wait another 12 years,” Vinjevold said.

Both projects also involve improving teacher skills, which is important because the 2004 research by the Centre for Development and Enterprise showed only 15% of SA’s mathematics teachers were qualified to teach.

SA faces a massive teacher shortage due to HIV/AIDS, low morale among teachers and fewer school leavers choosing to study teaching.

The Isasa project, which will begin next year and go to scale in 2008, would focus on black grade 9 pupils who had the potential to do well in mathematics and English, Hofmeyr said.

These pupils will be given bursaries to attend schools specialising in quickly improving pupils’ marks.

Mathematics and English were chosen, instead of the more common focus on mathematics and science, because this would widen the career options available to the pupils who benefited from the programme, Hofmeyr said.

SA lost almost 14 000 teachers in 2005

2006-10-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

There was a net loss of more than 13 800 teachers countrywide in 2004/05, according to the provincial budgets and expenditure review tabled by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel in the National Council of Provinces.

The review notes that one of the crucial areas in schooling is the training and supply of well qualified teachers.

“While in-service education and training (Inset) and teacher development programmes for addressing poor qualification levels have been successful over the past 10 years, other issues such as the slow growth in supply of suitably qualified teachers, particularly in an environment of much higher attrition rates, remains a concern.”

The review states that the “very low number of new entrants in 2004/05 is a challenge for the sector because this resulted in a net loss to the system of about 13 000 educators – the highest gap to date.”

During the year under review, 19 662 teachers left the profession while 5 848 entered it. The total number of teachers stood at 299 703. This is in stark contrast with the figures for 2003/04 when there were 17 962 new entrants and 15 410 who left.

An additional problem identified in the review was the retention of existing maths and science teachers and the training of new teachers of maths and science.

Violence at schools

2006-10-19T23:00:00.000-07:00

THE Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has added its voice to growing concern about the rate and gravity of violence in South African schools after a Limpopo schoolgirl was stabbed 28 times, allegedly by her boyfriend.

“We know that ... Education Minster (Naledi Pandor) has admitted that SA has got a problem with violence at schools, but the IFP feels it is now time for her department to admit that this has become a serious crisis that needs urgent government intervention,” said IFP education spokesman Alfred Mpontshane.

His comments come in the wake of a plea from the National Professional Teachers Organisation of SA (Naptosa) for the education department to ensure the safety of pupils and teachers “as an immediate measure”, while giving teachers the training, support and environment that would make it possible for them to teach in safety.

Violence and ill-discipline at SA’s schools was out of hand and the discipline problems experienced in many schools could not be solved by the nine provincial education departments or teachers alone, Naptosa president Dave Balt said. A “coherent and multifaceted plan” was needed.

“It’s a societal problem, but the education departments are undermining teachers because of their focus on the human rights of those who are in the wrong.

“We need to ensure that everyone’s human rights are protected,” Balt said.

The education department did not always back teachers who disciplined pupils, even when they followed correct procedure, and many teachers lived in fear of their own pupils. This had to change, he said.

The department was “well placed” to take the lead in an initiative to inculcate a human rights culture.

“Respect for others comes from within. The hearts and minds of people need to be changed. This means that every member of the community; every parent, every teacher and every learner consciously needs to begin to work towards respecting the rights of others,” Balt said.

Drug testing in schools

2006-10-19T22:55:00.000-07:00

SCHOOLS support the imple?ment?ation of random drug testing, but many have already adopted an assertive approach towards this growing social problem.

National education minister, Ms Naledi Pandor, announced that the series of violent incidents involving learners could be linked to drug use.

In an attempt to curb this social evil, Pandor said the department was considering the implementation of random drug tests.

Although the move has been welcomed by many schools, principals said that their schools had already developed projects to combat the growing drug problem.

Mr Leon Rutgers, principal of Kensington High School, agreed that drug abuse was the root of many of the learners’ problems. “We have seen that most learners’ problems stem from drug use. All schools have this problem, although maybe to a different extent,” said Rutgers.

He said the school had regular discussions dealing with the issue.

“We have people speaking to our learners about this problem. I know that all schools make concerted efforts to deal with this; however, this is often not noticed.”

Mr Lawrence Breakey, principal of Buren High school in Ysterplaat, said although the concept of drug testing for learners was supported, strict guidelines needed to be formulated.

“It’s an excellent idea and a move in the right direction. However, we need to know what the consequences will be if a learner is tested positive. All schools should be be informed of the specific guidelines,” said Breakey.

He added that the school offered a range of programmes dealing with the drug use problem and other social issues. “We have a peer educator programme which not only addresses the drug problem, but all social problems. We also have regular visits from the Cornerstone Christian College, with discussions about these problems.”

Milnerton High School principal, Mr Paul Besner, also supported the department’s idea, adding that the school also had projects in place to deal with drugs. “We have a group of learners who have been through drug rehabilitation and now talk to other learners about it. This shows that the doors of communication are opening, and this is a very useful tool,” said Besner.

Mr Deon Strydom, De Grendel High School principal, said drug use was a prevelant problem in all schools. “Schools that deny that this is taking place would be naive. It is happening and we are happy to support random drug testing,” said Strydom.

The school liaised with police and non-governmental organisations to curb drug problems, said Strydom.

He said parents were also involved in drug awareness. “We use roleplayers in the community to make our learners aware of the dangers of drug use. During our parents’ evenings, we take the opportunity to discuss the problem with them.”

Mr Gert Witbooi, spokesperson for the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), said the concept will still be finalised. “Education MEC, Cameron Dugmore, will liaise? with Naledi Pandor around this project. This is still a idea, we need to formulate this, it will not happen overnight,” said Witbooi.

He added that Safer Schools officials would also meet to discuss this issue and violence in schools.

“We will still discuss the guide?lines and implications of random drug testing. This is not geared toward naming and shaming our learners?, we want to support our learners? in need.”

Reading, writing and rampage

2006-10-16T23:13:00.000-07:00

A story of two women, in different cities, unknown to one another but sharing the pain of loss and betrayal. It's also a possibility that parents all over the country are increasingly being forced to face: sending their children to school, a place meant to nurture them into becoming better human beings, only to have them killed violently.

In May, 72-year-old Oneca Magagula's grandson, Thulani Shisana, 15, was slain at Sikhanyisele Primary School in Mamelodi East, Tshwane.

Shisana was sharing his lunch on the school grounds with friends when a pupil from another school shot him through the fence. He died in hospital later that evening.

Since Monday morning, heartbroken Soweto mother Maria Mbhele has been overwhelmed by the same heartache and pain that has haunted Magagula.

Her son Nkosana, 18, was killed at Forest Hill High School in southern Johannesburg, apparently after an argument over money.

The teenager was viciously knifed by a 14-year-old fellow pupil.

Teachers and pupils who rushed to Nkosana's aid were shocked by the savagery and brutality of the killing.

But their shock turned to outrage when they found the words "Chaklas was here" scribbled in Nkosana's blood on a wall near his body.

"Chaklas" was reportedly the nickname peers had given Nkosana because of his prowess as a pantsula dancer.

Magagula's grandson and Mbhele's son had attended school in the hope of receiving an education that would help them to better themselves.

Like the more than 12 million children who attend school daily in South Africa, believing that institutions of learning are sacrosanct, it might never have crossed their minds that they would be violently killed on the premises.

But their brutal murders, and the horrific killings of several other pupils across the country in recent months, have shattered this myth.

According to recent submissions on school violence made to the Human Rights Commission, schools have been reduced to "war zones".

Mzwandile Matthews, the Education Department's acting deputy director-general for quality promotion and development, rejected this claim.

Education Minister Naledi Pandor has conceded that not all South African schools are safe.

Earlier this year, she used the telling expression "sites of war" when questioning why pupils brought weapons with them to school.

Matthews did concede that there was a serious problem of "antisocial behaviour dogging our schools".

Matthews said: "Schools are supposed to be safe and secure spaces for learning and teaching, and not places for the perpetuation of crime and violence.

"The department cannot condone antisocial and deviant behaviour to continue plaguing our schools."

A frightening picture of life in some South African schools has been painted by Professor Sebastian van As, head of the trauma unit at the Red Cross Children's Hospital in Cape Town.

In his submission to the Human Rights Commission, which recently held public hearings on school violence in the Western Cape, Van As wrote: "Children are more likely to be violated at school than at other places, making schools one of the most dangerous places for a small child."

He backed his comment with statistics indicating that 441 of 4474 children up to the age of 12 who were treated for assault had been assaulted in schools.

Van As maintains that violence is "a learnt behaviour", and that a child's popular and sometimes only role models were gangsters and taxi drivers.

Last year, according to Education Department statistics, one murder and 17 rapes were committed in schools. A total of 498 pupils were assaulted in schools in just three provinces.

To the alarm of teachers and parents, pupils are indulging in a new craze that has gripped schools -- filming vicious classroom brawls on their cellphone cameras.

Eradicate schools built in mud

2006-10-16T23:07:00.000-07:00

Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka has urged the Eastern Cape government to do whatever it takes to eradicate schools built in mud in the province.

"We must do away with mud-built schools more especially since this is a disaster-prone area," Ms Mlambo-Ngcuka told Education MEC Mkhangeli Matomela, during a Presidential Imbizo.

Parents complained that their children's lives were threatened by the poor infrastructure.

Several such schools were washed away during heavy rains in the province recently.

Ms Mlambo-Ngcuka said it was government's aim to do way with such conditions as they were not conducive to progressive learning.

Mr Matomela told BuaNews that the provincial government was so far left with 572 such structures to do away with, with R600 million set aside for this reason this financial year.

"We have a plan to eradicate them over a period of two financial years," Mr Matomela said.

To expedite the process, he said he would approach the provincial executive council to grant him authority to implement a programme where communities could build their own schools.

School violence is normal

2006-10-16T23:03:00.000-07:00

THE upsurge of violence in South Africa is fuelled by the fact that teachers and pupils have accepted it as a normal way of conflict resolution, a specialist said at the weekend.

Mediation and Transformation Practice managing director Craig Arendse‘s comment comes in the wake of several violent incidents, resulting in death, in schools across South Africa.

A 14-year old allegedly stabbed an 18-year-old to death at Forest Hill High School in Johannesburg last Monday.

It is claimed that Grade 10 pupil Nkosana Mbhele ran a loan scheme and had lent money to the 14-year-old. When he wanted it back he was stabbed.

Education Minister Naledi Pandor has expressed concern about violent conflict in schools.

In two Eastern Cape incidents, teenage girls were filmed with cellphone cameras having a fist fight.

In one of the latest incidents, a video in three parts of a fight between two Grade 11 girls at Port Elizabeth‘s Westering High School is being distributed at R5 an SMS. The videos contain excessive swearing as well as punches being thrown.

Spectators can be heard in the background encouraging the girls to hurt each other.

A fight between two pupils at Alexander Road High School has also been circulating for months and further afield a video of a Brits High School pupil punching a fellow pupil until her fists bled, in full view of about 20 girls and boys, is also being distributed. The fight took place two weeks ago.

Arendse was speaking at a workshop held in Richmond Hill, Port Elizabeth, for about 100 Port Elizabeth pupils, mainly from the northern areas.

He said the workshop, aimed at providing teenagers and pupils with alternative ways of dealing with anger and conflict, was an important way to change attitudes where children and teachers accepted violence as normal.

Conflict did not mean fighting, he told the workshop, but was an opportunity for change and growth.

“I show the pupils how to resolve conflict in a non-violent way. As part of the exercises I asked them to draw posters. Every poster they draw is marked by violence.”

Arendse said most of the posters drawn by the pupils showed guns, people fighting, crying, houses on fire, and scenes of knife attacks. Two months ago, he said, he had held a similar workshop with teachers. During the sessions they had complained about the violence their pupils were exposed to.

The workshop, partly sponsored by the Bethelsdorp Development Trust and the education department, was attended by pupils from Gelvandale High, Hillside Senior Secondary, and six primary schools, Helenvale, Bayview, Hillcrest, Adolf Schauder, Rufane Donkin, and De Vos Malan. Each school sent about seven pupils.

“The children were chosen for their leadership qualities. They are now ambassadors of peace and we hope they would have an influence to others.”

The workshop was to teach the pupils listening skill and mediation, Arendse said. “We need to break the vicious cycle of violence.

“We need to show the children that we have a choice, we can find a way. We have to present them with a new future and then present a new vision to them.”

At the beginning of the workshop the children were required to sign a contract in which they agreed to be respectful and honest, and to keep each other happy.

He said the aim of the exercise was to teach the pupils that they should have contracts at school, in the community, and at home.

Helenvale Grade 4 teacher Marsha Jacobs said the workshop came at the right time because teachers were struggling to cope. Children were also affected by the ongoing violence.

Exam trouble in Mpumalanga

2006-10-16T01:56:00.000-07:00

Mpumalanga is once again embroiled in a matric exam cheating scandal, although the jury is out on whether the copy of a section of the standard grade geography exam found in Sabie this week was a leak.

While no evidence to support a leak had emerged, the national education department was investigating the allegations, said the department’s deputy director-general of further education and training, Penny Vinjevold.

The department’s investigation will probably continue into marking time in December.

Umalusi, the statutory body tasked with ensuring the quality and integrity of matric exams, would wait for the department’s final report on the matter, said spokesman Jabu Maphalala.

“Umalusi takes all reports of irregularities seriously and these areas will continue to be closely monitored in line with regulations governing the activities of Umalusi,” he said.

The province has suffered several exam irregularities over the years, the most recent being 2004’s cheating scandal in which teachers at 11 of Mpumalanga’s 420 high schools were found to have helped matric candidates writing several exams.

The cheating delayed the release of Mpumalanga’s matric marks into January.

The most publicised incident cost disgraced education MEC David Mabuza and his most senior managers their jobs in 1998.

This year’s exam went ahead on Thursday after the alleged leak came to light on Tuesday, when a portion of the exam script was picked up off a Sabie pavement.

80% of South African high schools are dysfunctional

2006-10-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

Nearly 80% of South African high schools are dysfunctional, provide poor quality education, and in need of external intervention. This revelation is contained in a report entitled Money and Morality, released by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR).

The majority of children in the poorly performing schools are black and poor. The substandard education they get constitutes an obstacle to social and economic development. The report calls for principals to be removed and for strategies to improve performance to be developed.

Susan Brown, the manager of the IRJ's political analysis programme, says the numbers that have for some years been providing on the crisis in education and the amount of money spending on education is not translating into the numbers of matrics and university entrants. But it's not all doom and gloom as there is a "tiny band" of schools in the poorest communities that provide some of the highest quality education. Another group of about 400 schools, mainly in township and rural areas, is also being helped by the government's Dinaledi project, which solicits help from the private sector.

However the majority of the best schools are still those that were reserved exclusively for white children. The report says the department is trying to deal with the problems. "I think they are beginning to problematise and to build their strategies on the basis of the quality issue and recognition of the fact that 80% of the schools are dysfunctional," Brown said. But Naledi Pandor, the education minister, is puzzled by the claim that schools are dysfunctional.

Pandor says dysfunctional means non-operational and millions of children go to school in this country. She says what they concerned about is the quality of learning and teaching that goes on in these schools but dysfunctionality she would really like to read the report. The report recommends that the best performing schools should be given incentives to enroll greater numbers of poor children.

Paying millions to vice-chancellors

2006-10-12T08:09:00.000-07:00

Education Minister Naledi Pandor accused universities of paying millions to vice-chancellors while neglecting facilities at the institutions.

It was revealed earlier this year that the Mangosuthu Technikon vice-chancellor Professor Aaron Ndlovu was earning R3.2 million a year.

Tertiary institutions were also criticised for their role in the high drop-out rate in the first year of study.

Manto said universities had in the past simply taken on students to keep up the numbers to get extra funding, without paying attention to the students being admitted.

She also criticised the "binge drinking" culture at universities.

She said another factor in the high drop-out rate at universities was that students were ill-prepared when they arrived at the institutions.

Drug tests will make schools less dangerous

2006-10-11T04:03:00.000-07:00

After introducing metal detectors and security guards in schools, the government said it also could resort to random drug tests to stem playground violence.

Education Minister Naledi Pandor told parliament she was "seriously considering" the proposal.

She said: "I believe the impact of drugs may be what is leading to the psychotic kind of conduct we are seeing on the part of some children in our schools."

There have been several incidents of violence in schools recently with two pupils stabbed to death, a girl shot in the leg in class and a high-school student in hospital with concussion after a fight about a cellphone.

Concern has been expressed over high numbers of girls raped or sexually abused at school.

"There is something wrong with our society," said Pandor, adding that children need to be given a better moral grounding at home.

"Why is it that our children believe they can carry a gun on to school grounds ... why (do) they carry a sharp weapon?

"What is it that makes a boy of 16 beat a child to within an inch of his life for a cellphone?

"It is something that we must address within our communities, within our families. We need to change the violent nature of our society."

It’s quite thin

2006-10-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

EDUCATION Minister Naledi Pandor’s new policy framework for teacher education has met with mixed reaction.

“It’s quite thin,” said Jon Lewis, spokesman for the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu), which represents 220000 of SA’s 390000 teachers, most of whom are in public schools.

The document allows 21 days for the public to comment, and is important because there is a swathe of research which shows that many of SA’s teachers are simply not good enough to be teaching the 12-million pupils in SA schools.

To remedy this, the proposed policy determines new baseline qualifications for teachers, and continuous professional development — both aimed at making the vocation more professional.

“I’m not so much in favour of continuing professional development. There is a naive belief in SA that training always produces results,” said Prof Jonathan Jansen, dean of education at the University of Pretoria, last week.

The system was welcomed by the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA (Naptosa), which represents about 71000 teachers.

It makes the South African Council for Educators (Sace) — a professional body for teachers — responsible for monitoring the system and registering teachers. This registration will be a de facto licence to teach, something which worries Naptosa president Dave Balt.

Balt said neither Sace nor the education department’s district offices had the expertise or capacity to properly police the system.

“Teachers know that the department doesn’t have the capacity. It’s not on,” Balt said.

School of shame

2006-10-10T03:34:00.000-07:00

Fed up with the failure of the department of education to keep its promise to renovate a run-down Hammanskraal school, frustrated parents and teachers have opted to close down the school of 900 pupils.

The pupils and 29 staff members at Lethamaga Middle School in Hammanskraal share four pit toilets. There are 16 classrooms for 900 pupils.

In September last year the minister of education, Naledi Pandor, visited the school and expressed shock at the poor conditions. She promised the school renovations, a library and a laboratory.

Soon after her visit the North West department of education put out a R500 000 tender for renovations.

The tender was awarded to Mmampudi Trading Enterprise in May this year.

According to the tender documents which are in the possession of the Pretoria News, the contractor was given six months to complete renovations.

But four months later conditions at the school have gone from bad to worse.

After months of trying to get the department of education to intervene and appoint a new contractor, parents and teachers held a meeting on Sunday and decided that no pupil would go to school until the department kept its promise of carrying out renovations.

The plan was to renovate the classrooms block by block and work started in May on four classrooms.

But the contractor came in for only one month and four months later the first classroom block still has no roof and no ceilings, broken windows have not been replaced, there are no doors and electrical cables hang from the walls.

Meanwhile, pupils and teachers are crowded into the remaining 12 classrooms, bringing the teacher-pupil ratio to 100 pupils per teacher in each classroom, compared to 60 pupils per teacher prior to the renovations.

The department guideline is 35 pupils per teacher.

Teacher Solly Maubane said teaching the children has become increasingly difficult.

Maubane said: "We were in a bad situation when the minister visited our school, and things have gone from bad to worse for us.

"There is hardly any running water. In a good week we get water twice a week, but there are days when children have to go out into the community to get drinking water. The toilets are a health hazard and we fear for our health."

The school's administration is housed in a tiny room with cracked windows covered with cardboard to prevent thieves from entering. The room is filled with files and records of pupils, and papers are strewn across the cramped desks. The school principal's office is even smaller.

The smell of the pit toilets is overpowering.

Teacher Zakes Muravha said: "I have opted not to use the toilets as the smell is unbearable. This is not what was promised to us by the minister last year. We have nothing here. This is not right."

Teachers have no staffroom and sit outside under a tree during lunch breaks to mark papers and catch up on administrative work. When it rains, teachers say they do their work in their cars while the pupils shelter in the classrooms.

Parent and school governing body member Nchimane Kade said: "We initially had overcrowded classrooms, but this is ridiculous. Our children cannot be taught in these conditions; they are packed in like sardines with no ventilation.

"The roofs are aluminium, which makes it worse in summer as it is hot. They got through winter in these conditions and now they are being forced to go through summer like this. Something must be done urgently."

School is a very dangerous place

2006-10-10T03:27:00.000-07:00

Shocked pupils and teachers from Forest High School, in Forest Hill in the southern part of Johannesburg, had to receive counselling after finding the body of Simon Mbele, 19, who was stabbed to death on the sports field by another pupil.

Mbele was involved in a fight with a Grade 8 boy at the school. He was stabbed four times in the neck.

Police spokesperson captain Schalk Bornman said pupils noticed the two boys having an argument at a building on the sports field. The boys apparently argued over money.

"They saw the 14-year-old boy running away and went to see what had happened. They found the boy's body. He was stabbed in the neck four times with a sharp object."

The boy was found dead in a ditch at the building. According to pupils there were fist fights nearly every day at the school.

"Teachers have no control over the children. The only thing that will help is if corporal punishment is brought back. Children bring knives to school and jump over the fences to bunk whenever they feel like it. And that is not only the case here, we know about other schools where it is a lot worse."

Apparently the deputy principal at this school was seriously assaulted by a pupil a couple of months ago.

Science for dummies

2006-10-09T13:15:00.000-07:00

The impression that science is only for the rich, the clever or the select few should be dismantled, Education Minister Naledi Pandor said.

Of the 748 000 Grade 12 pupils now starting their matric exams, only 48 102 had enrolled for mathematics on the higher grade (HG).

Six times as many, 279 000, enrolled for maths at standard grade (SG) level.

"In SA, there is still a shortage of black engineers, scientists and accountants," Pandor said.

Province to lose hundreds of teachers

2006-10-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

The department of education is set to fire hundreds of part-time teachers, because the unions said that they should receive full benefits.

School pupils in the Western Cape are in for a nasty surprise next year, when 458 ad hoc posts teaching posts will be scrapped.

The mostly poor schools, where ad hoc teachers are used, will now have to resort to even bigger classes, where over-crowding is already a problem. According to a daily paper, school principals are outraged, as this comes at a time when schools are battling to come to terms with the new Further Education and Training curriculum, or FET

MEC for Education, Cameron Dugmore, says that the decision to scrap the posts had been made in consultation with the teachers unions, citing that ad hoc teachers should receive full benefits.

Really big document finally out

2006-10-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

The department of education has finally released the long awaited national policy framework for teachers.

The department says the framework provides clarity on the training, recruitment and development of teachers. Naledi Pandor, the education minister, has conceded that much still needs to be done to achieve the goal of a quality education for all. Progress is dependent on a well qualified and motivated teaching force.

It's hoped the policy framework will address not only the morale of teachers, but make the profession more attractive. Research shows more than 20 000 teachers leave the system every year, but only 6 000 newly trained teachers enter the classroom. This is a situation the country can ill afford.

Mary Metcalfe, the head of Wits school of education, says the country needs to recognise that the provision of teachers is a State responsibility, and the State needs to take special steps to provide necessary funding to support young people that go beyond the existing mechanisms.

Things are in a mess

2006-10-04T04:11:00.000-07:00

The Education department’s own assessment of what was going on at district offices had found the offices unable to fulfil their core functions because of a lack of skills, resources, personnel, technology, equipment and funding.

District offices should be assigned proper powers, budgets that they managed with clearly set obligations, and a core of professional staff and equipment to ensure they played the role of professional support to schools effectively, Education Minister Naledi Pandor said.

To be able to properly support teachers and schools and improve the quality of SA’s public education, district offices needed staff who knew and understood the curriculum, were experts on assessment and on teacher development needs and school resource planning, Pandor said.

Local pupils have performed poorly in recent international tests comparing pupils’ abilities and Pandor said she suspected many district offices did not know how the schools under their jurisdiction were faring in comparison to the rest of the country.

Fewer matrics to write exams

2006-10-01T03:32:00.000-07:00

MORE than 2000 fewer full-time matric pupils than last year will sit for this year’s final exams in Gauteng — and education authorities are blaming a shift to private schools, but critics point to dropout rate and more serious reasons.

The province’s State of Exam Readiness Report shows 76641 pupils were registered to write the final exams later this month, compared with 79243 last year.

The report from the Gauteng Department of Education also shows the total number of provincial matrics — part- and full-time pupils — has dropped for the first time in five years.

Department spokesman Panyaza Lesufi has courted controversy by saying that the drop was “not much” and was a result of more parents sending their children to private schools.

“One of the causes of this slight drop is that we have programmes like Adult Basic Education and Training (Abet) and also the introduction of Curriculum 2005 that saw some parents taking their children to private schools,” he said.

But the chief executive officer of the Independent Examinations Board, Lyn Scott, disagreed, saying figures from the body that governs private school exams showed an increase of only 300 pupils.

“We have an increase year-on-year, which is about 5% or 300 candidates. But it is not that significant for the department to make such a statement,” she said.

Salim Vally, senior researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Education Policy Unit, said Lesufi’s statement was “a dangerous thing to say”.

“Do they have any evidence? Although there are different kinds of private schools, many rely on fees far beyond the means of many families in the province,” he said.

“Society relies on students who complete high school and who have received a quality education. We will be more impoverished as a country if the department does not ensure this.”

Democratic Alliance education spokesman David Quail said the number of people moving to Gauteng from other provinces should have led to an increase in the number of matric candidates this year.

“We are not sure if it’s the HIV/Aids epidemic taking its toll or schools that are holding back learners. We also know that there is a huge dropout of learners after Grade 7,” he said, adding that this was because pupils were legally allowed to leave school at the age of 16 and many dropped out to find work to support their families.

Lesufi has since backtracked, saying the department’s “general observation” of parents moving children to private schools was “merely one of the reasons” for the drop.

The department is optimistic about its pass rate.

“We are a smart province that must produce smart results and that is what we are expecting,” he said.

No-fee schools chaos

2006-10-01T03:24:00.000-07:00

School principals warned this week that the South African government’s decision to award substantial subsidies to pupils in “no-fee” schools could spark an exodus of learners from suburban schools to these institutions.

VISHNU Naidoo is growing vegetables at his school to pay mounting electricity and water bills. But from next year the Buffelsdale Secondary School principal will have to find several more profit-generating initiatives to keep his school afloat.

Although Naidoo’s school, which is being run on a shoestring budget, meets the criteria for being declared a very poor or “no-fee” school next year, the KwaZulu-Natal Education Department has ranked it as a wealthy school.

This means the school’s 588 pupils — most of them from poor backgrounds — will not receive the subsidies ranging from R560 to R629 that will be allocated to each pupil attending the province’s “no-fee” schools next year. They will receive R110 — the subsidy awarded to pupils from wealthy schools, according to Naidoo. The amended norms for funding schools, published recently in the Government Gazette, make provision for schools to receive subsidies based on the poverty levels of the communities they serve.

Dozens of principals of impoverished schools across the country have lodged objections to the ratings given to their schools.

The Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (Fedsas) said it was investigating complaints from some schools that were considered wealthy because they had Afrikaans names.

Mpumalanga’s Education MEC, Siphosezwe Masango, admitted there were “weaknesses” in the way some schools had been rated.

Pupils attending poor schools in the Free State will from next year receive a subsidy of R721 each while their counterparts in the so-called “advantaged” schools will only receive R240.

Naidoo said running his school from next year would be a big struggle. “The R110 subsidy per pupil from the department is not enough to buy a Grade 11 textbook, which costs around R160.”

Basil Manuel, president of the Association of Professional Educators of KwaZulu-Natal, said 18 principals in the province had lodged objections to their schools’ ratings.

“The schools are no longer serving the traditional communities for whom they were built years ago. Pupils are being bused in and these pupils are not from affluent areas.”

Manuel said some schools had run up water and electricity arrears totalling more than R500000 because only 50% of their pupils could afford to pay school fees.

Paul Colditz, chairman of Fedsas, warned that there would be a “dramatic increase” in school fees next year. “The general complaint from school governing bodies was that the level of funding from government was insufficient.”

Limpopo’s Education MEC, Aaron Motsoaledi, expressed similar views, saying: “Everybody will like their school to be declared a no-fee school. It won’t be an improvement for urban schools. We will buy them books only. They won’t get any cash from us.”

Teachers are not doing their work

2006-09-29T02:22:00.000-07:00

One of the South African regime's favourite themes is the damage done by the apartheid education system. Twelve years on, the situation is worse than ever.

Government has to put money into teacher training, supervision and monitoring if it wanted to improve the dismal scores recorded in tests which compare educational standards between countries.

Massive investment is needed to improve teachers' skills. The base in the lower grades is so low, the teaching in the lower grades is so bad, that it will be easy to improve it. If people make up their minds, teacher skills can be improved fairly quickly.

Even the education department's deputy director-general of systems planning and monitoring, Firoz Patel, calls for those wishing to invest in education to put their money into teacher performance.

Teachers' unions have been reluctant to accept an integrated quality management system and Education Minister Naledi Pandor's plans to introduce licensing for teachers.

SA was the only Saqmeq (Southern African Consortium for the Monitoring of Education Quality) country where teachers -- through their unions -- refused to be tested. This is a pity because SA needed to monitor teachers' skills so that people would know where skills should be improved. We need to know how much our teachers know, and what they know.

Pandor wants to introduce a system of licences, which would be a prerequisite for working as a teacher, to make teaching more professional and give teachers recognition for participation in accredited teacher development programmes.

In the second round of tests conducted by Saqmeq, the performance level of South African pupils was found to be among the lowest of the 14 African countries that took part in the study.

A random sample of 3416 pupils from 169 public schools was tested in reading and mathematics -- and SA's pupils were found wanting. South African schools are better resourced than their Saqmeq counterparts but perform worse at every socioeconomic level.

Research shows richer schools performed better than poorer ones and this was linked not to money and physical resources, but to lower incidences of teacher absenteeism, better qualified teachers and principals who saw the monitoring of pupil performance as their primary role.

Improved teacher training is made more urgent because the supply of teachers was affected by the AIDS pandemic. Research by the Human Sciences Research Council, released last year, shows that 12,7% of public school teachers were HIV-positive.

Most poor schools had a problem with teacher absenteeism, and the impact was very large.

Poor education a threat to economy

2006-09-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

South Africa's Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said the poor quality of public education in Africa's economic powerhouse will threaten future growth if not corrected.

South Africa's economy has boomed over the past few years but the government wants even higher growth to tackle widespread poverty and unemployment.

Pandor highlighted a skills shortage among graduates -- especially in engineering and information technology -- as a particular cause for concern but pledged to double the number of students studying vocational courses by 2008.

Education officials were recently stung by a South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) report that berated the government for failing to honour its commitment to deliver quality education for all citizens.

The country's Aida epidemic also was cited as a prime factor for a "crisis" in the school system, according to Sadtu, with 12,7% of teachers infected with HIV and about 10 000 in need of immediate antiretroviral treatment.

"How do you save education from this chaos?" Sadtu boss Thulas Nxesi said, calling for school spending to be raised beyond its current 6% of GDP. "You have to spend more to level the playing field."

But Pandor rejected the call to increase spending, insisting that it was more important to improve how money was spent.

The government has been accused of neglecting public schools, particularly those in poorer predominantly black townships, including Soweto, the huge township south of Johannesburg.

Some estimates say up to 12-million South Africans are illiterate although Pandor said her department put the figure at closer to 8-million.

School is a very dangerous place for a child

2006-09-28T07:51:00.000-07:00

Many schools are urban war zones, with teachers struggling to cope with unruly pupils, some of whom are armed, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) was told.

Violence at schools varied from blunt assault to human bite wounds and firearm-related injuries, the director of the Child Accident Prevention Foundation of Southern Africa said, describing schools as "dangerous places".

"It can therefore be estimated that children are more likely to be violated at school than at other places, making schools one of the most dangerous places for the small child," said Professor Sebastian van As.

Van As's estimation was contained in a written submission, one of more than 50 to the SAHRC, which on Thursday commenced two-day public hearings into violence at schools.

Jody Kollapen, chairperson of the SAHRC, said violence at school had escalated beyond that normally associated with bullying, and now included serious levels of violence, and even deaths.

"Receiving a quality education will not be possible in a state of fear," he said, mentioning the historical and current socio-economic context that contributed to societal violence.

Kollapen said the commission was concerned about the ability of society, the education system and pupils to overcome the problem, which seemed to affect girls especially.

Pointing to the problems both pupils and teachers faced on a daily basis, the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) said the right to human dignity was being infringed.

"The slightest provocation would lead one learner [to] assault a fellow learner ... Learners are often accosted on their way to school by criminals loitering ... On a daily basis learners are robbed of jewellery, cellphones and taxi fare," read Naptosa's submission.

The teacher organisation said violence at schools contributed to low staff morale, could lead to psychological problems in pupils resulting in learning difficulties, as well as a high absenteeism rate.

The South African Council of Educators sought to debunk the current notion of alternatives to corporal punishment, arguing that this approach was "neither reasonable nor justifiable".

Corporal punishment is outlawed, but remains controversial as some teachers continue using it as a means of discipline, saying it is the only thing that works.

Critics of corporal punishment believe it perpetuates violence, with the country not having a national policy regarding safety at schools.

More emphasis was needed on conflict resolution and mediation skills.

"Trauma management and peer counselling had made tremendous progress and had reached out to even the homes of learners," said the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

The centre said a safe-schools project had achieved much in making participating schools safer. "Safety teams" involving the local community are an effective way of encouraging community involvement.

Earlier this year, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor announced plans to improve school security, which included plans to identify "problem schools" and increasing security infrastructure such as fences and closed circuit TV cameras.

Pandor also suggested random searches of pupils for drugs and weapons.

Willem Basson of the Western Cape's community safety directorate said a one-size-fits-all approach could prove problematic because different schools had different problems.

Basson said drug misuse, gang-affiliation and gangs were major problems besetting Cape Town schools, with 66% of schools located in "high crime" areas.

To date 500 crime-prevention volunteers had been sent to 101 schools in a bid to counter some of the violence.

This included the rape of a 6-year-old in a school toilet late last year, a teacher being hijacked and pistol-whipped in front of school in March this year and several murders in and around "township" schools.

High failure and dropout rates among black students

2006-09-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

Half the country's undergraduate students drop out without completing their degrees and diplomas, Education Minister Naledi Pandor has told Parliament. And only 30% obtain their qualifications within five years of enrolling as first-year students.

It is not just historically black universities that are experiencing this alarming trend -- 33% of undergraduates drop out of Wits University, and 31% go missing at Rhodes. We are "not proud of the progress of all students admitted", said Wits University registrar Derek Swemmer.

Inadequate academic preparation and financial difficulties are the two key reasons advanced for the high dropout rate.

The figures are drawn from a department of education "cohort study" of students who first entered undergraduate programmes in 2000, seen as the most reliable to date. The student cohort was tracked at each tertiary institution for five years, till end-2004.

The data also presents figures for Unisa and Technikon SA separately, on the assumption that “the average time for completion for students of these two [distance] institutions would be longer than the assumed average (five years) of the predominantly contact institutions”.

It is clear that close to 50% of undergraduates dropped out. If Unisa and Technikon SA are excluded, about one in three university students and one in two technikon students dropped out.

Universities highlight the poor preparation of students. Said University of the Free State vice-rector Magda Fourie: “Inflated school results mean even school-leavers with good results are increasingly under-prepared for higher education.”

Selection also poses problems, observed Rhodes University registrar Stephen Fourie. “School-leaving results are reliable indicators of potential success at university at the top end of the scale, but become less reliable lower down.”

Explaining Wits’s dropout rate, Swemmer said some students “take an ill-advised decision to enter into higher education without necessarily having the appropriate aptitude”.

HIV/Aids also played a part. "Some students either become too ill to continue their studies or the infection becomes fatal", commented Karuna Krishanlal-Gopal, spokesperson for Walter Sisulu University.

Gessler Nkondo, spokesperson of the Association for Black Empowerment in Higher Education, pointed out that for many black students, “English is not even a second language but a foreign language. Unless we look at modes of delivery in higher education, it won’t matter how many black students get into, say, the University of Cape Town.”

Nkondo said his association had joined the Human Sciences Research Council earlier this year in probing the causes of high failure and dropout rates among black students.

Severe skills shortages

2006-09-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

South Africa is so desperate for artisans that it is importing them. The regime is doing little to address the situation. The trade union Solidarity is working hard to find a solution.

Unions do not generally get involved in training, but Solidarity launched Sol-Tech in January to train artisans, and the training arm is set to expand it next year.

Sol-Tech education and training director Theuns Steenkamp says: “Only 7% of all the matrics who pass go to universities and universities of technology; and 12% study at further education and training colleges and private higher education institutions. Our question is, ‘What happened to the other 81%? They can be trained’.”

Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of SA (Seifsa) skills development director Janet Lopez says it is hard to put a finger on the shortage of artisan skills in SA, but it is “pretty critical”. She says SA’s cohort of artisans is rapidly nearing retirement — the average age of South African artisans is 54.

The problem was highlighted by former Chamber of Mines president Con Fauconnier last December when he said the shortage left him “deeply concerned about the short-, medium- and long-term capacity of our country to achieve the growth needed to meet our government’s aspirations to deal effectively with poverty and unemployment”.

SA’s economy is growing, and government wants to achieve a 6% growth rate, but experts say that economic growth is stymied by the lack of artisans, as construction work is slowed.

There has also been a long-term training hiatus — Seifsa figures show there were almost 13000 apprentices in training in the industry in 1982, whereas last year’s intake was 3150. Steenkamp says this year only 492 students enrolled in industrial, artisan and technology courses at SA’s universities of technology and 102 at universities.

Management styles have changed and globalisation has forced the large companies that used to do training, such as parastatals Eskom and Telkom, to focus on their core business and eliminate posts that do not contribute directly to the bottom line. Training has been a victim of this approach.

At least some of SA’s 21 sectoral education and training authorities (Setas) should be training artisans, but Steenkamp says that last year about 80000 people enrolled in learnerships through the Setas, and 5767, or 7,2%, finished the programmes in which they had enrolled.

In 1998 the Skills Development Act did away with the apprenticeship system, replacing it with a system of learnerships. A learnership involves training leading to a formal, accredited qualification and includes practical work experience but, unlike an apprenticeship, the learner is not paid while being taught. Learnerships consist of modules that give preliminary qualifications at various stages until a full qualification is earned.

This means learners face strong incentives to drop out — they either leave and gain paid employment, or they leave before finishing the full course.

Steenkamp says the union decided about two years ago that the problem was so urgent, and the Setas’ work so slow, that they would have to roll up their sleeves and get training.

“We realised we couldn’t wait for the Setas any longer, the process is too slow. We couldn’t stand on the sidelines and scream for more artisans, we had to do something about it,” says Steenkamp.

The result was that Sol-Tech opened its doors in January and has trained 200 electricians with funding from the energy sector’s Seta, trained 240 others in labour relations and trained a new cohort of petrol jockeys in partnership with the South Tshwane Further Education and Training College.

In the new year it will be training electricians, plumbers and welders.

“We realised we had to do something for our members, and for nonmembers, especially in the area of scarce and critical skills. We do not agree with the attitude of big companies that import artisans,” Steenkamp says.

Education Minister Naledi Pandor has repeatedly urged school leavers to consider technical training.

To increase workplace training, government introduced the national skills levy, a tax of 1% of payroll for businesses of a certain size. The money is distributed to the Setas and businesses that train, or pay for training, are able to claim back up to 70% of these funds.

Various experts have said that small businesses find it difficult to claim back the skills levy funds to which they are entitled and Solidarity, through Sol-Tech, helps small businesses claim this money, says Steenkamp.

Devil loose in education

2006-09-21T07:58:00.000-07:00

The poor minister is taking fire from everywhere. My heart bleeds for her.

The South African Students Congress (Sasco) has called on the public to rally behind it in an effort to open the doors of learning, because the “devil is running loose in higher education”.
The student movement said closure of historically black campuses as part of the merger of institutions of learning was an attempt to deny education to the African child.

Sasco, in direct reference to the plan to close the Mamelodi campus of the University of Pretoria, said it wants Education Minister Naledi Pandor to review the progress and direction of the mergers.
Sasco’s general secretary Terror Yako said since the beginning of mergers of institutions there had been the-so called “untouchables that are left to run loose and do as they wish with the future of students”.

Yet another student protest

2006-09-19T02:52:00.000-07:00

The students are real unhappy. It seems like they want apartheid back, or something.

The SA Student's Congress (Sasco) on Sunday said it has lost confidence in Education Minister Naledi Pandor, for the closure of historically black tertiary institutions. "We give the minister an ultimatum of two weeks to open the closed campuses," Sasco secretary-general Terror Yako said.

He said Sasco has lost trust in Pandor, who has let the so-called "untouchable" close their doors to poor students who could not afford fees after the merger of tertiary institutions. "Instead of protecting poor and disadvantaged students, the department of education is folding its arms," Yako said on the last day of the organisation's three-day national executive committee meeting in Johannesburg.

"... we call for a speedy review on the progress and direction of the mergers.

"As Sasco, we have lost trust in the Ministry (of Education) in advancing this programme of transformation.

Sasco's call on the minister to act on the mergers came after students at the Tshwane University of Technology, a merger of three technikons, held protests over unequal use of resources

Take it easy

2006-09-19T02:48:00.000-07:00

Student protests in South Africa usually descends into an orgy of destruction of property. The minister is now getting really strict about it. Yeah sure.

Education Minister Naledi Pandor on Monday told student representatives that protests on campuses should be conducted in a manner that promoted democracy and respected the rights of all individuals.

During a meeting between Pandor and representatives from various student organisations, the minister said destruction of property could not be defended.

Pandor invited the organisations to the meeting to brief the student leaders about plans for the re-capitalisation of the Further Education and Training (FET) Colleges and progress on mergers and incorporations of Higher Education Institutions (HEI).

She reiterated her commitment to expand the number of students attending FET Colleges and expressed satisfaction with the progress of mergers and incorporations of Higher Education Institutions. The minister also pointed out that there was much to be done to meet the objectives elaborated in the National Plan for Higher Education (NPHE).

Reading and writing is not in the curriculum anymore

2006-09-12T15:06:00.000-07:00

South African schools are going down the tubes because of misguided dabbling in a very complex outcome-based education that is proving beyond the ability of some teachers.

MANY teachers blame the new outcomes-based education (OBE) curriculum for SA's many educational failings, but Education Minister Naledi Pandor told teachers last week this would not be tolerated.

"No school can claim to be educating if it produces children who are not literate and numerate," the minister told the SA Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) at its national congress in Midrand.

Pandor claims that it is not the curriculum that is at fault but the manner in which it has been implemented, and promised teachers more support and training. Her comments follow hot on her department's open letter to school principals last month urging them to ensure that primary school pupils were taught the basics of reading.

"Since the introduction of the new curriculum, many teachers believe they do not have to teach reading anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth. Reading is probably the single most essential skill a child needs, and it should be acquired as early as possible," wrote the deputy director-general of general education and training, Palesa Tyobeka.

The education department's letter came after a departmental survey showed a "shockingly high" number of SA's pupils could not read at the appropriate grade level, which Pandor has described as "a crisis in our system".

Pandor promised teachers more and better training and expert support on the curriculum for clusters of schools at local level. She urged Sadtu to discuss how it could lead these clusters. The minister admitted that the education department and its provincial daughters had not been efficient enough.

"Teachers are where the problem comes in. You need to have well-trained teachers and they have to buy into the idea. That didn't happen," says Mary Hyam, a remedial teacher at Johannesburg's De la Salle College, and a part-time education lecturer at the University of Johannesburg.

"When you look at it, it is implementation that is the problem," says John Mathfield, the principal of KwaZulu-Natal's Epworth Primary School, who chaired the technical committee that co-ordinated the compilation of Curriculum 2005 in 1996, when OBE was introduced to SA.

The weekend-long type of training SA's public school teachers have had in OBE is inadequate and not properly focused.

Research by the Joint Education Trust shows up the poor education of black teachers. The study revealed that the average mark a sample of grade three teachers in 24 poor rural schools in SA achieved on a grade-six test in their subject was 55%.

The reality is that most of the teachers can't read or write properly. The way teachers are teaching now, because their subject knowledge is poor, is that they are reverting to what they know, the old methods of teaching.

Because of the sophistication, the advantaged schools have become more advantaged. You need to analyse OBE and be sufficiently informed about it.

The exam was too difficult

2006-09-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

Learners failed their exams because they had no text books to study from. The contracts of the people who bungled the deliveries were extended. The regime blames the high failure rate on the exam papers were of such a high standard. The learners also did not have enough time to write down their extensive knowledge during the allotted time.

Delays in the delivery of study materials to schools in Mpumalanga has been identified as the main cause for poor pass rates in all grades.

But, it was not the main reason for the 3.2% drop in the matric pass rate last year, said education MEC Siphosezwe Masango in the legislature on Tuesday afternoon.

Masango said that the matric pass rate dropped in all provinces because the national papers were of a high standard and because of the introduction of the outcomes based education (OBE) curriculum.

"Too little time was allocated for pupils to write the papers," he said. "They need more time to think if a paper is difficult."

The pass rate dropped from 61.8% in 2004 to 58.6% in 2005.

Masango said the delay in the delivery of study materials had affected all grades last year.

"This delay has a negative impact on all grades because teaching and learning cannot start in time," he explained.

Delivery was expected to improve because the contracts awarded to companies that delivered textbooks and other materials had been extended to two years to ensure continuity.

The contracts of staff working at the warehouses also had been extended by at least 12 months.

Masango confirmed that the exodus of teachers to better-paying jobs in the education department and elsewhere was a major setback.

He said he was particularly concerned because the enrolment of trainee teachers at tertiary institutions was low.

School is a very violent place

2006-09-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

The regime is compiling a manual for teachers on how to deal with violent learners (pupils). What's next? Self-defence courses for teachers?

A 15-year-old Gauteng boy was stabbed in the neck with a pair of scissors. At the same time, an 18-year-old pupil in the same province was arrested after he threatened a peer with a gun in a school toilet.

A 16-year-old boy died after he was punched in the head by a friend at a party in a KwaZulu-Natal south coast town, and in the North West, a Rustenburg matric pupil had to undergo surgery after being assaulted by a fellow pupil.

And, in what has been described as racial tension boiling over, up to 100 black and white pupils at Westonaria High School chanted racist insults while others slugged it out.

Eight pupils were arrested after the clashes, during which some of the boys allegedly threatened each other with scissors.

The escalating violence in South African schools was a reflection of society and not of a defunct education curriculum, the national Department of Education (DoE) said.

The department’s response followed criticism that an under-developed school curriculum failed to prevent school violence because it did not address the emotional and psychological development of pupils. “The behaviour of learners does not have a correlation to the curriculum, as suggested earlier,” said Lunga Ngqengelele, spokesperson for the DoE.

Ngqengelele said the behaviour of pupils was adopted from what they see in the community. In a speech given by Education Minister Naledi Pandor at a school in the Free State, she said: “The department has begun to intensify its programmes against violence and unsafe schools.

“The DoE and the Department of Safety and Security have developed a resource manual, Signpost for Safer Schools, which is intended to assist teachers in preventing and managing negative conduct in schools.” The manual encourages the creation of school safety committees, which will work closely with the South African Police Service.

Doing the right thing by doing nothing?

2006-09-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

The minister might be right, just this once. It's hard to tell right from wrong here. Surely school children should be told to abstain from sex, rather than being provided with condoms? But sexual education is lacking in schools...

Education minister Naledi Pandor was acting immorally by refusing to make condoms available in schools, Treatment Action Campaign chairperson Zackie Achmat told delegates at an international conference on Wednesday.

"Pandor's immoral position undermines informed choice and places youth at increased risk of harm," he said in an address at the closing session of Microbicides 2006 in Cape Town.

Achmat said a survey carried out in South Africa in 2004 showed that 62 percent of young people who were HIV-positive but did not know it, believed they were not at risk of HIV infection.

The absence of serious sexual education also placed children at increased risk of teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted infection and HIV.

Achmat hit out at the government and President Thabo Mbeki for promoting what he said was a "conspiracy of silence", accusing them of trying to make Aids deaths "invisible".

Soon you will need a license to teach

2006-09-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

Plans to introduce teachers’ licensing by the Department of Education (DoE) are doomed to failure, judging by the reaction of teachers’ unions.

Minister of Education Naledi Pandor floated the idea during a meeting in Cape Town as “part of steps by the Department of Education to improve the quality of education in South Africa”.

But three unions -- the Suid-Afrikaanse Onderwysersunie (Saou), the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) and the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) -- rejected the proposal.

Not only are they angry that the minister did not consult them before she went public on the issue, they have raised concerns based on the department’s inability to implement similar initiatives in the past.

This comes at the time when DoE is still at loggerheads with teachers’ unions about the implementation of integrated quality management system (IQMS).

At the heart of the fall-out between the unions and the DoE is a 1% salary increment which teachers should get after they have been appraised. But some provinces failed to carry out this obligation and the DoE refuses to effect the increase.

The unions argue that failure by DoE to assess teachers cannot be used as an excuse to deny teachers their salary increase.

It's not as bad as it sounds

2006-09-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

How to obfuscate an issue.

Minister of Education Naledi Pandor on Tuesday rejected a report by the Beeld newspaper on the dropout rate in South African schools.

The newspaper reported that only 21,9% of pupils who had been in grade one in 1994 wrote matric last year.

Pandor said the report was a misreading of her response to a parliamentary question.

"The dropout rate refers to the proportion of learners who leave school without completing a given grade in a given school year," she said in a statement.

"Hence, the dropout rate is grade-specific and is not measured across a range of grades.

"The question presumes that a subtraction of enrolment figures between grades provides a measure of the dropout rate between grade one and 12."

"Moreover, when attempting to do a cohort comparison it needs to be born in mind that in the early 1990s there was a high under-age enrolment rate and repetition rate in grade one," she said.

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Only half the guests attended function, we will have to spend more next time

2006-09-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

The department of education spent a total of R190 163.07 on a “function” after its Budget vote in the National Assembly earlier this year, according to Education Minister Naledi Pandor.

Replying to a parliamentary question from the Democratic Alliance, she said a total of R61 248.80 was spent on food and refreshments, R10 000 on unspecified “entertainment”. About R30 400 was spent on Voyager miles for ten guests. Pandor said 350 guests were invited to the function, but only 200 attended.