Education counts

According to a recently released UNESCO report entitled Education counts: Benchmarking progress in 19 WEI countries, China has the most tertiary graduates in the world (2.4m in 2006) -- almost twice as many as the USA which used to be the world leader.

As part of the World Education Indicators (WEI) Programme, the publication analyses the progress made by 19 middle-income and developing countries (viz, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Malaysia, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay and Zimbabwe). For comparative purposes, the report also includes benchmarks for OECD countries and an additional 12 countries (viz, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania, Slovenia and Macedonia). Key findings from the report include:
In 2005, more students graduated from universities in the 19 WEI countries than in the OECD states combined (5.7m versus 5.2m).

Despite the surge in the absolute numbers of university graduates, graduation ratios remain lower in WEI countries than in the OECD. In WEI countries 19.7% of young people attain a university degree, which is just more than one-half of the OECD average. Similar to OECD countries, WEI countries report a strong trend in tertiary studies attracting more women than men. Women account for 56% of university graduates in WEI countries compared with 55% in OECD countries.

The growth in tertiary education has come at a high cost for WEI countries, which spend 53% of GDP per tertiary student on average compared to the 40% OECD average. Overall, children in WEI countries can expect to spend about 14 years in school -- about four years less than in an average OECD country. In an average WEI country, just over one in five upper secondary students is enrolled in technical and vocational education, which is about one-half of the OECD average. While OECD teachers earn more in absolute terms, WEI countries pay their teachers more relative to national income. WEI primary teachers with 15 years of experience earn on average 184% of GDP per capita, compared to the OECD average of 135%.

$220m campaign to educate 9m vulnerable children

At the annual Clinton Global Initiative summit recently held in New York, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) launched a campaign to raise $220m by 2010 to allow 9m refugee and vulnerable children, particularly those from Sudan's Darfur region, Iraq and Colombia, to acquire an education, partly based on the Internet, but also by attrackting teachers into remote locations. The campaign seeks to address all aspects of a child's educational needs, from teachers and notebooks to transportation, water and vocational training, and puts particular emphasis on getting girls into the classroom. The campaign brings together the UNHCR and private sector partners such as sports goods maker Nike, software giant Microsoft, employment service provider Manpower, the advertising group WPP, and GSMA, an association of mobile phone operators and equipment suppliers.

Boat schools and libraries for flood-prone Bangladesh

Bangladesh, a very low-lying country, is among the most vulnerable countries on the planet to climate change. Melting glaciers in the Himalayas are already causing sea levels to rise, and scientists say Bangladesh may lose up to 20% of its land by 2030 as a result of flooding. A creative response to flooding in Bangladesh is so-called boat schools and libraries. In 1998, a Bangladeshi architect, Rezwan, started his nonprofit group with just one 20 feet by 15 feet flat-bottomed boat built from local materials. Today, his fleet of school boats consists of 45 vessels, including some library boats. Each school boat fits about 60 young people -- 40 on the deck and about 20 on wooden benches set up on the bow.

The boat schools were made possible partly by an award of $1m in 2005 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with funds from the Washington-based Global Fund for Children. The money helped Rezwan set up hugely popular Internet services -- including live chats with scientists -- and design a solar-powered lamp that he gives out to families to enable their children to study at night. The boat schools operate year-round and offer a full primary school education with the same syllabus as classrooms on dry land. They serve about 90 000 families in an area covering more than 300 miles, and make three to four-hour stops six days a week.

Goals for Girls campaign

At the recently held FIFA Women's World Cup 2007 in China, UNICEF and FIFA 'kicked off' a new 'Goals for Girls' campaign which aims to promote education, gender equality and women's rights through sport. The competition was used as a platform to explain how educating girls not only helps eliminate gender discrimination, but also contributes to addressing many of the most serious problems their communities face, eg, poverty, hunger, disease, violence and abuse. The UNICEF-FIFA campaign promotes the child-friendly school model, offering both genders a quality education in a safe environment, even in emergency situations. UNICEF also works with partners and governments to remove barriers to education, including school fees and lack of access. GIS for schools The City of Cape Town, together with partner organisations, is developing a hands-on geographic information systems (GIS) project for high schools based in urban nature reserves.

The environmental education centres at Rondevlei and Tygerberg Nature Reserves are preparing to support GIS-based fieldwork. As part of this project, called Youth, Urban Nature & GIS, senior learners will be able to experience how nature conservationists use GIS technology to monitor and care for nature. Learners will use hand-held global positioning system (GPS) units to locate monitoring sites and record coordinates; monitor plants, animals and the environment and record observations in a database; construct GIS layers; and display findings and digital photographs using GIS technology. By monitoring the environment, learners will help the nature reserves to care for nature in the City of Cape Town. The Western Cape Education Department has already selected six schools to take part in the pilot project this year. In 2008, the reserves will make GIS-based fieldwork part of their senior high school programme.

National Education Infrastructure Management System (NEIMS)

Recently the Department of Education published the first National Assessment Report of the NEIMS, an electronic planning and management tool, which allows for 'real-time' access to information about the condition of infrastructure and facilities at each of the 28 742 public schools across South Africa. Following a comprehensive audit of each school, the report has detailed information, including digital photographs, about every school - the land and buildings, the condition of these, as well as teacher and pupil numbers. The information is also mapped by means of GIS, which provides a useful overview of the spatial location and distribution of schools. According to the report, substantial progress has been made since 1996, including the following:

  • The percentage of schools overcrowded (ie, >45 learners per classroom) has declined from 51% in 1996 to 25% in 2006.
  • The number of schools with no source of electricity on or near site has decreased from 15 263 in 1996 to 4 046 in 2006.
  • The number of schools without a source of water on or near site has declined from 8 823 in 1996 to 2 891 in 2006.
  • The number of schools without on-site toilets has declined from 3 265 in 1996 to 1 318 in 2006.
  • The number of schools with no library space has declined from 21 907 in 1996 to 19 940 in 2006.
  • The number of schools with no computers has declined from 18 348 in 1996 to 17 081 in 2006.

The report concludes that 58% of assessed schools are in an excellent condition, 16% in a good condition, 15% in a poor condition and 11% in a very poor condition. In 1996 the respective percentages were 7%, 77%, 11% and 5%. However, it is also evident that substantial backlogs still persist in relation to the provision of facilities, and the standard of these. Regrettably, in some cases, once good facilities have been degraded due to vandalism, neglect and inadequate maintenance. Some of the most concerning backlogs relate to the provision of water and sanitation to schools. In addition, only 7% of assessed schools have adequate libraries, while 68% of schools have no computers and only 2% of schools are equipped for disabled learners.

Education Laws Amendment Bill

The Education Laws Amendment Bill was recently passed by the National Assembly despite being opposed by opposition parties. It still has to go through the National Council of Provinces before it is signed into law by President Mbeki. The most widely publicised aspect of the bill is the powers it gives to school principals to randomly search pupils 'on the basis of a reasonable suspicion of finding a weapon or drugs'. According to Education Minister Pandor, "the bill is unambiguous (on) our resolve to fight the evil of drug abuse. Schools are supported to act, the rights of learners are protected, and our determination to put an end to drugs in schools is communicated".

The skills gap

The Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) has released the findings of its second research report on maths and science education in the country. "Annual passes in higher-grade (HG) maths are falling short of the Department of Education's stated targets 2004-2008 for achieving the doubling goal, and from 2005 to 2006 they actually declined," said CDE executive director Ann Bernstein. In 2004, 467 985 learners wrote the senior certificate examinations, with 39 939 writing HG maths.

Of all those writing the examinations, only 5% (24 143) passed HG maths. Further, only 7 236 passes (or 1.5% of the total) were obtained by African students. The report showed that more than half of South Africa's secondary schools failed to achieve a single HG maths pass, while 81% of schools achieve one pass each on average. A list of measures compiled by the CDE to improve maths and science performance at secondary school level includes the following:

  • Audit current maths, science and teachers to test for competence.
  • Recruit foreign teachers.
  • Test students for mathematical aptitude in grade 7 through a voluntary aptitude test; and move students with potential for maths to a good school so they have a chance of passing HG maths. (This will require bursaries, support to learners in the new environment, support to receiving schools.)
  • Greater private sector involvement (using its money as social risk capital), and better alignment between government and private company efforts.

Commenting on the link between economic growth and education and training, director and chief economist of Econometrix, Dr Azar Jammine, highlighted the teacher shortage in SA, and pointed out that the number of people in South Africa with just grade 10-11, leaving school before they had finished matric, had increased to 48.5% from 34.5% in 1995. He also said that even though the unemployment rate was far lower for those with tertiary qualifications, people were also not studying in the fields currently critical to the economy.

Thus, there are high unemployment rates for graduates in humanities and arts and law, while science and engineering graduates have lower unemployment rates. "There is a reluctance among South Africans to take on the difficult subjects," said Jammine. "Particularly disturbing is the proportion of Black Africans with tertiary qualifications which also declined." He also showed that the number of Black Africans with higher grade maths was at just around the 1 000 mark, pointing out that "It is a major constraint and has a lot to do with the schooling system," adding that only 11.4% of Black Africans were getting university exemptions. "How do you then facilitate BEE?" he asked.

Understanding the realities of globalisation

Following an agreement reached during a recent visit to China by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, 50 South African high schools will soon teach Mandarin, the most widely spoken language in China. In terms of the agreement, China would provide the teachers, while the education department would decide on the logistics, including selecting the schools that will offer Mandarin. SA is China's biggest trading partner in Africa, exporting R14b worth of products to China and importing goods to the value of R47.7b.

Education concerns are universal

Even developed countries are concerned about the quality of education and education outputs. In Britain, many lessons are taught by teachers with no relevant qualification. In 2002, reports The Economist, approximately a quarter of those teaching maths to 11-18 year olds had not studied the subject beyond A-level themselves. Only half of the lessons were taught by someone with a maths degree. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy recently expressed his concern in a 30-page 'letter to teachers' about too many school drop-outs, not enough respect or authority in the classroom, too little value placed on the teaching profession, too little art and sport in the curriculum, too much passive rote-learning, and too much 'theory and abstraction'.

These concerns come in the wake of a government-commissioned report which found that in France 40% of pupils leave primary school with 'serious learning gaps' in basic reading, writing and arithmetic, while 20% finish secondary school with no qualification at all. Moreover, by the age of 15, 38% of French pupils have repeated a year, more than in any other OECD country. And yet French 15-year olds spend an average of 1 042 hours a year in the classroom - 150 more than German pupils, and 282 more than English ones.

Education Trends is compiled by the Institute for Futures Research.

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