Education

Most Mfuleni tent children back at school

Arrangements have been made to accommodate most of the Mfuleni learners who were using a tent as a school, according to the Western Cape Department of Education.

Mary-Anne Gontsana

News | 4 February 2015

Primary school kids sent home because of lack of toilets and sewage smell

It is only 10am on a Wednesday morning and A.C.J. Phakade primary school students in Nomzamo township (near Strand in Cape Town) are already walking home or waiting for shuttles to fetch them.

Zintle Swana

News | 29 January 2015

No room for learners: parents start school in tent

Hundreds of learners are using a tent in Mfuleni’s Bardale neighbourhood as a school after parents say they were turned away from primary and high schools in the area which are full.

Mary-Anne Gontsana

Feature | 29 January 2015

Educational technology has huge potential: a response to Nikki Stein

Last week Nikki Stein from SECTION27 expressed reservations about the piloting of paperless classrooms at seven township schools in Gauteng. MEC for Education in the province, Panyaza Lesufi, responds here.

Panyaza Lesufi

Opinion | 27 January 2015

Organisation provides hope and skills to thousands of kids

At 22 years of age, Brightness Khumalo, has found a job that she describes as hard but which she clearly finds rewarding.

Mary-Anne Gontsana

Brief | 22 January 2015

“Enough is enough!” - Manenberg residents take to the streets

Instead of the familiar echo of bullets, the sound of dozens of Manenberg residents chanting “Enough is enough” could be heard last night through the streets notorious for the recent spate of gang violence in the area.

Barbara Maregele

News | 21 January 2015

Classrooms of the future?

The air is thick with the excitement of the first week of school. Stories of bright-eyed learners whose parents are dropping them off for the start of their school careers, donning their too-big uniforms and carrying backpacks almost the size of the learners themselves, are all over newspapers, radio stations, televisions and social media.

Nikki Stein

Opinion | 21 January 2015

NSRI’s water safety education a “drop in the ocean”

The WaterWise Academy has taught water safety skills to over half a million children around the country. These skills are easy to learn and provide an effective way to reduce the number of drownings in South Africa, says the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI).

Kevin Elliott

News | 20 January 2015

Meet the first Mitchell’s Plain school with a 100% matric pass rate

It has taken almost 50 years for a school in Mitchell's Plain to achieve a 100% matric pass rate. Not since the community’s inception in the 1970s has a school in the area managed to ensure that each of its pupils not only made the grade but also excelled at maths and science.

A’Eysha Kassiem

News | 12 January 2015

Let’s not focus only on the matric results

A focus on the matric results obscures problems lower down in the education system, writes Wim Louw.

Wim Louw

Opinion | 7 January 2015

Long day’s journey to school

The journey to school is long and tough for many pupils. Some have to travel for hours on foot to get to school. The Equal Education Law Centre (EELC) recently collected affidavits in rural KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) which were “truly incredible and devastating”.

Mary-Anne Gontsana

News | 4 December 2014

Teaching Khayelitsha children to swim

Nondumiso Marman used to fear water but now she teaches Khayelitsha children how to swim.

Siyabonga Kalipa

News | 3 December 2014

Donors respond generously to GroundUp article on sanitary pads

In November, GroundUp published an article on learners using socks and all manner of items as sanitary pads. Donations have been streaming in to the GroundUp offices ever since. These will be distributed to schools.

GroundUp staff

Brief | 2 December 2014

Factions fuel violence at Durban hostel

Sitting on a worn-out green sofa outside Durban’s giant Glebelands hostel, Thulani Kati describes in graphic detail his alleged torture by a special police unit on 2 October this year.

Fatima Asmal and Barbara Maregele

Feature | 28 November 2014

Prevention strategies the key to curbing violence against children

“South Africa has no national statistics on violence against children,” says Shanaaz Mathews, director of the Children's Institute at the University of Cape Town. In the absence of statistics, the South African Child Gauge looks at community-based studies. The 9th issue was launched in Pretoria on Tuesday.

Mary-Anne Gontsana

News | 20 November 2014

Link between poor housing, traffic deaths and education outcomes

The 7th annual Irene Grootboom Memorial Dialogues, which explore the continuation of Cape Town’s “spatial apartheid”, are underway. On Tuesday night, the focus was on the spate of shack evictions around the city this year, and the correlation between poor, densely populated areas and traffic deaths and education outcomes.

Daneel Knoetze

News | 19 November 2014