Tax and spending: Focus needs to fall on higher growth for state to meet ambitious goal
THE 2015-16 budget demonstrates the government’s determination to preserve SA’s hard-won
South African teachers switch languages in class: why policy should follow
If you step into a classroom in South Africa’s Limpopo province during a lesson, you’re very likely to hear the teacher speaking more than one language. She might begin a sentence in English, and then switch to Sepedi – the African language most commonly spoken as a mother tongue in the province.
How Toni Morrison’s legacy plays out in South Africa’s universities
I first encountered Toni Morrison during my undergraduate years at Rhodes University in South Africa where her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved (1987), was taught as part of an American Literature course.
David Koloane fought for the right to define himself – and his art
Dr David Nthubu Koloane, who was born in South Africa in 1938, was an extraordinary pioneer in the visual arts who fiercely defied any form of categorisation.
Old IQ tests not good for our kids, say experts
Educational psychologists described the widely used IQ test, Senior South African Individual Scales-Revised (SSAIS-R), as obsolete and not relevant to children growing up in the 21st century.
Smallholder crop farming is on the decline in South Africa. Why it matters.
Over half a million households in South Africa’s former homelands disengaged from farming between 2011 and 2016, according to Statistics South Africa. This represents a loss of one in five crop farming households.
How South Africa’s universities are making more students multilingual
South Africa is a multilingual, multicultural space. As is the case for many other countries in Africa, it has a number of official languages – 11.
Arts and culture were given money in South Africa’s budget. Why it matters.
Analysts came to a range of conclusions about the budget speech delivered recently by South Africa’s Finance Minister Tito Mboweni. But few paid attention to his comments on arts and culture. He made a commitment that National Treasury will identify funds to support a new national theatre and museum, among other initiatives.
Why embracing indigenous languages could have major benefits for Kenya
Kenya is a multilingual country with over 42 different indigenous languages. In addition, foreign languages are used by minorities in major towns and in some learning institutions. The most dominant foreign language is English which is an official language alongside Kiswahili.
What we learned when our map of southern Africa’s rivers went viral
Can you name the river closest to where you live? Have you ever seen that river on a map? How would you react if you saw that river, and others near you, in a map unlike others you have seen before?
South African research output has risen, but caution must temper celebration
Each year, Nature, a research output database, publishes its index of high-quality research outputs across a range of journals within the natural sciences. Topics range from climate change to human biology. The data on the index represent output by institution, by country and by extent of collaboration.
Universities must stop relying on software to deal with plagiarism
Educational software – whether it’s a teaching aid or a program designed to help teachers with administration – is big business. The recent multi-billion dollar acquisition of Turnitin, a program that is used around the world to flag possible evidence of plagiarism, is further proof of this. But does this application mean that universities are actually dealing with plagiarism?