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Fewer primary-school-age children not in school
According to new estimates by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), the number of primary-school-age children not attending school declined by 2m worldwide between 2005 and 2006. The latest education statistics show that 75m children were out of school in 2006, down from 103m in 1999. Girls account for more than 50% of the out-of-school population. The 72m figure reported for 2005 and published in the latest Education for All Global Monitoring Report has been revised upwards to 77m, based on new population estimates released by the United Nations Population Division in 2007. From a regional perspective, South and West Asia reported the greatest progress. This was mainly as a result of changes in India, where the number of children out of school declined by more than 12m as participation in primary education significantly improved for girls (accounting for more than 75% of the decrease). Sub-Saharan Africa also made important strides, with a reduction of 10m – largely the result of progress reported by the governments of Ethiopia and Tanzania.
Under-privileged children also disadvantaged in the classroom
A new UIS study entitled A view inside primary schools which presents the results of a unique survey conducted in 11 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, India, Malaysia, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Uruguay), highlights the strong effect of social inequality on primary education systems in many countries and the challenge to provide all children with equal learning opportunities. Fourth grade teachers and principals from more than 7 600 schools responded to detailed questionnaires on how schools function, how teachers teach, learning conditions and the support available to teachers and principals. The report reveals major gaps in resources between urban and rural schools. ‘It is disturbing to think that students get more or less resources based on where they live. But that is just part of the story,’ says Yanhong Zhang, one of the authors of the report. ‘The study shows that pupils in villages were more likely to come from disadvantaged homes. So the inequalities in school resources are linked to their socio-economic status. In effect, these children are subject to a double-jeopardy – with fewer resources at home and in school’.
Getting disabled children into schools
Approximately a third of the 75m children out of school in the world are disabled and only 10% of disabled children in Africa attend school. Recent research conducted by the World Vision UK shows that getting disabled children into education is critical for achieving the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015. Access to good quality basic education is a fundamental human right and so is inclusive education for disabled children. Furthermore, since there is a strong link between disability and poverty, it is important to educate disabled children in order to reduce poverty. Overall, the study found that the main gaps in education for disabled children at national levels include:
- a lack of information on the total number of disabled children, the proportion enrolled in school, the proportion out of school and the range of provision;
- insufficient planning to respond to the diversity of learning needs and to increase enrolment places for disabled children;
- a lack of financial projections of costs and funding mechanisms and incentives to encourage inclusion;
- limited attempts to form partnerships with parents, communities and non-governmental organisations; and
- a lack of coordination between different ministry sectors and services.
Academic shortage hampers research in Africa
According to one of Africa’s distinguished education leaders, Prof Akilagpa Sawyerr, secretary-general of the Association of African Universities and former vice-chancellor of the University of Ghana, research capacity of African universities is being hindered by the emergence of serious bottlenecks. He suggests that the most significant human element is the lack of sufficient highly qualified academics. According to him a ‘pandemic of enrolment explosion’ had taken place in recent years without commensurate growth in faculty numbers. ‘From all accounts faculty have aged and moved on to retirement; they are not being replaced at the rate required to maintain the appropriate levels of mentorship of junior faculty and leadership of graduate programmes’.
Zimbabwe’s economic crisis has taken its toll on state universities that have also been devastated by a mass exodus of academics, resulting in plummeting standards. According to Prof John Makumbe, a political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, the flight of lecturers had hit crisis levels. Major push factors were low pay for academics in a collapsing economy with 165 000% inflation – the world’s highest – poor working conditions, lack of transport and computers, and problems finding accommodation.
Early childhood care and development
The importance of investment in early childhood development in sub-Saharan Africa was underscored as crucial to overall development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals at the launch of Africa’s future, Africa’s challenge: Early childhood care and development in sub-Saharan Africa by the World Bank. According to Marito Garcia, World Bank human development lead economist, ‘children are the future and investing in their future during the early years becomes an investment in the future of the continent’. Statistics show that sub-Saharan Africa’s gross pre-primary enrolment ratio of 12% (compared with 48% for all other developing regions) contributes to a low primary schooling completion rate and poor performance in primary grades. Early learning experiences help children through the transition phase when entering primary school and increase the likelihood that they begin and complete primary education. ‘Today the challenge is to provide a good start for the 130m children under the age of six in sub-Saharan African countries. Urbanisation, for example, tends to change the role of extended family members as caregivers. The growing number of working mothers with young children has increased the demand for nonparental childcare. This demand is further exacerbated by the newest challenge, which is the rising number of orphans, who now total over 12m, mostly as a result of HIV/AIDS’, noted Garcia.
South Africa children and pornography
According to a recent survey by the Films and Publications Board’s ministerial task team on child pornography under the leadership of the deputy minister of home affairs, Malusi Gigaba, conducted among high school learners at randomly chosen schools in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, 81% of surveyed children aged 13 to 17 have seen pornographic images on their friend’s cell phones. Sixty-seven percent have been exposed to pornography through movies and, by the time they are aged 18 years, 64% have seen images of pornography on the Internet. The survey also revealed that 45% of the respondents admitted to watching pornographic films regularly. ‘More boys (84%) than girls (54%) have watched at least one pornographic film’, the report said. The aim of the study was to provide an informed basis for the establishment and implementation of public policy initiatives and other measures to minimise children’s exposure to such materials.
National Schools Violence Study
According to the recently published National Schools Violence Study by the Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention, learners at both primary and secondary schools in South Africa are significantly at risk of falling victim to some form of violence while at school. The study focussed on four primary forms of violence, viz, threats of violence; physical assault; sexual violence; and robbery. Theft at school was included as a marker variable. The main findings of the study are the following:
- In total, 15.3% of all learners (or 1.82m) between grades 3 and 12 had experienced some form of violence (excluding theft) while at school.
- Threats of violence are common in both primary and secondary schools. In total, more than one in ten (12.8%) learners reported having been threatened with violence, with 10.8% of primary and 14.5% of secondary school learners reporting this experience.
- One in 20 learners (5.8% or 0.69m) reported experiencing incidents of physical assaults at school. Cases of assault, which could include physical bullying, were more common at primary schools (7.5%) than at secondary schools (4.3%).
- Girls at primary schools are more likely to be robbed than boys (4.5% vs 1.8%), while at secondary schools, males (8%) are twice as likely as females (3.8%) to be robbed.
- At primary schools, boys (2.5%) are more likely than girls (0.2%) to report having experienced sexual violence, while at secondary schools girls (4.8%) are three times as likely as boys (1.4%) to have been sexually assaulted or raped. More than 27 000 learners have experienced some form of sexual violence at school.
- Those learners who had been exposed to some form of family violence were twice as likely to be victims of violence at school (35.3%) and at home (31%) than those who had not been exposed to family violence (18.1% and 14.2% respectively).
- The study shows that the primary drivers of violence within schools are firmly rooted in the generally violent environments in which children live outside of school.
Primary schools receive children’s values book
The department of education is to distribute 120 000 copies of a children’s book which tells stories with positive values messages to primary schools around South Africa. The read-aloud booklet, which is available n all official languages, and which is aimed at three to nine-year-olds, consists of 10 picture stories, each revolving around one specific value. The stories are interspersed with pages for adults that include discussion questions and information on how to discuss the particular value explored in the story with young children. Speaking at the launch, Minister Pandor said the book was launched in recognition of the need for values education.
South African Schools Football World Cup launched
The South African Schools Football World Cup was recently launched in an effort to stimulate excitement around the 2010 FIFA World Cup for the 12m learners in South Africa. The Schools Football World Cup is a partnership between government departments, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and the Local Organising Committee (LOC). The launch also saw the opening of a two-phase competition. Schools are to assume the identities of the participating countries and will be encouraged to fly that country’s national flag, sing its national anthem and engage in activities such as preparing the national food of the country they represent. Minister Pandor who kicked off the games, said the initiative was also aimed at luring school children away from the streets and inappropriate habits, and encouraging them to engage in healthy lifestyles. District competitions for the South African Schools Football World Cup will take place from 16 May to 16 August 2008, followed by provincial competitions from 30 August to 14 September 2008 and finals from 20 to 23 March 2009. The department of education has proposed a five-week long school break during the 2010 Soccer World Cup to avoid pupil and teacher absenteeism and a chaotic transport system. The proposed school calendar deviates from the usual three to four week mid-year break and will run from 10 June to 12 July 2010.
School inspections back after two decades
According to education minister, Naledi Pandor, South African schools are to be visited by inspectors this year for the first time in 24 years. The department of education has previously partly blamed South Africa’s poor rating in international comparative standard tests in which South African children often came last on the lack of a school inspection system. A small cohort of school ‘evaluators’ would begin work this year, and the education ministry would draft legislation to create an agency or institute to develop expertise in education evaluation and development, Pandor said when she recently presented her budget vote to parliament.
Re-opening/re-creating of teacher training colleges considered
The South African government is considering re-creating teacher training colleges that were either shut down or incorporated into universities a decade ago. Now a teacher college campaign is being driven by the ANC president, Jacob Zuma, backed by some political parties and teacher unions, but not necessarily by universities, in the face of drastic teacher shortages in schools as teachers emigrate, die of AIDS-related diseases or leave the teaching profession. Recently, education minister Pandor told parliament that her department was investigating options to re-establish some colleges in view of the teacher shortage. However, she has stressed that not all colleges will reopen since South Africa needs to train more teachers at university-level to improve quality. Pandor’s announcement was welcomed by teacher unions.
However, John Lewis, media office of the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu), said government also needed to put more effort into making teacher training arrangements in universities work better. ‘We don’t see this as colleges versus universities. We think that a lot of the intellectual drive behind teacher training will continue to come from universities. But colleges have a role to play in teacher training outreach.’ Sadtu’s pro-college argument has three main thrusts. First, Lewis said, when teacher training was transferred to universities ‘they didn’t really rise to the occasion. There has been a massive drop in the number of teachers being trained.’ Universities are graduating around 6 000 to 10 000 teachers per annum, but the profession is shedding 18 000 teachers a year. South Africa loses approximately 4 000 teachers per annum to emigration. Secondly, universities have focused on the high end of teaching, on upgrading teachers at the postgraduate level rather than training new teachers, Lewis explained. ‘Third, an advantage of colleges was that many were located in rural areas so they were much more accessible to people in areas that most need teachers. The idea is to take teacher training to where it is most needed.’
South Africa has 72 ‘A rated’ researchers
According to the rating system of the National Research Foundation (NRF), South Africa now has 72 ‘A rated’ researchers who are ‘unequivocally recognised by their peers as leading international scholars in their field’. Among the 72 ‘A rated’ scientists, 30 are from the University of Cape Town, 16 from the University of the Witwatersrand and 12 from the University of Stellenbosch. There are no ‘A rated’ researchers at universities of technology. In terms of fields of research, the highest number of ‘A rated’ academics are in animal and veterinary sciences (10), while there are eight each in engineering and mathematics, seven in health sciences, six in physics, and five each in plant sciences, law, and literary studies, languages and linguistics. The latest statistics on rated researchers in South Africa, provided by the NRF, indicate that around one in every seven researchers in the country is now rated in one category or another. South Africa has approximately 22 400 full-time equivalent researchers.