SOUTH Africa needs to increase the number of researchers and technicians it has at its disposal if it wants to remain globally competitive in innovation.

This was one of the key issues raised in the 2022 South African Science, Technology And Innovation Indicators Report, published by the Department of Higher Education, Science and Innovation on Friday (29 July).

Minister in charge of that department, Blade Nzimande said that the number of researchers employed in research and development (R&D) in South Africa has been on the decline since 2018, as has the number of technicians employed in R&D.

The proportion of technicians to researchers employed in R&D decreased from 32.8% in 2014/15 to 24.3% in 2019/20, and employment in R&D in the business sector declined by slightly more than one-fifth, he said.

“A critical component of a well-functioning innovation system is human capital across all the science, technology and innovation (STI) activities,” the department said.

“Previously, much of the focus was on researchers carrying out R&D activities in South Africa. However, technicians are important for the integration and translation of research ideas into demonstrators and other tangible R&D outputs. Hence, the number of researchers employed in R&D are analysed along with the technicians employed in R&D.”

The department pointed to a steady increase in researchers employed in R&D between 2010 and 2017. However, since 2017, the numbers have declined.

While South Africa’s number of researchers in 2019 (28,358) was 51.5% more than in 2010 (18,720), it said the country needs to up the number of researchers of all races to increase its innovation potential.

The upside to the latest data is that transformation is taking place in South Africa’s STI landscape, the department said.

There is an increase in the percentage of African researchers, from 26.7% in 2010 to 35.6% in 2019. However, there is a declining trend among white researchers in the country.

While the percentage of white researchers has declined, the absolute number of white researchers was in fact on the increase from 14,789 in 2010 to 15,795 in 2017. However, the numbers dropped back to 14,890 in 2018 and further to 14,224 in 2019.

The proportion of both coloured and Indian researchers increased marginally between 2010 and 2018, the department said.

When it comes to technicians, a more troubling picture emerges.

The number of technicians employed in R&D has been on the decline since 2015. As a result, the proportion of technicians to researchers has decreased from a high of 32.8% in 2014 to 24.3% in 2019.

“The decline in the percentage and number of technicians employed in R&D should be interpreted in the context of the movement of R&D in South Africa from the business sector to higher education, with more focus on basic research,” the department said.

However, even taking into account the migration from business to academics, the number of technicians employed in R&D by the higher education sector is also very low, it said.

Nzimande said that following the 2020 and 2021 Covid-19 pandemic, the country’s National System of Innovation has been “stretched to its limits”, which impacts the country’s ability to compete internationally.

“South Africa’s innovation performance is falling behind other middle-income countries with regard to outputs such as patents and high technology exports. South Africa performs better in innovation inputs than innovation outputs. Considering its level of innovation investment, the country produces few innovation outputs,” he said.

The resolve the issue, he said that his department will focus on the 2019 White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation, which aims to future-proof education and skills as one of its core pillars.

The government is trying to strengthen a future-ready workforce at both the foundational and further education levels through restructuring curriculae and introducing a broader range of subjects and courses.

BUSINESS TECH

STAFF REPORTER|

THE Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) will host its annual Career Day this week, to expose learners from township and rural schools to various opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The event, to be held in Pretoria on Wednesday, is part of the organisation’s continued effort to promote science and technology career fields among young people.

The Career Day, which will be attended by hundreds of learners and educators, forms part of National Science Week (NSW), an initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation that aims to increase the level of public understanding of science countrywide.

This year, NSW’s theme is “Celebrating the role of basic sciences in the modern world”.

The CSIR Career Day seeks to spark STEM ambitions among grade nine to 11 learners from disadvantaged schools, who are taking mathematics and science as subjects.

CSIR researchers will use the platform on the day to showcase various technologies and science-based activities, such as science experiments, exhibitions, presentations and motivational talks, says the organisation.

According to the 2021 ICT Skills Survey, significant digital skills gaps persist, with South African organisations battling to fill tens of thousands of vacancies.

The most in-demand jobs include software developer, computer network technician, developer programmer and ICT communications assistant, according to the report.

On CSIR Career Day, learners will also have the opportunity to engage with researchers and scientists on various career opportunities, explore science and technology-focused exhibitions and see demonstrations of various projects from different clusters in the organisation.

The event will take place from 8.30am to 3pm on 3 August at the CSIR International Convention Centre. For enquiries, contact David Mandaha on dmandaha@csir.co.za.

INSIDE EDUCATION

ALMOST half of South Africa’s teachers are going to have to retire in the next 10 years, says Julian Hewitt, chief executive officer of the educator bursary programme, the Jake Gerwell Fellowship.

Speaking to 702, Hewitt said that the Department of Education’s payroll showed that the country’s schools are expected to run out of highly skilled teachers.

The latest Jake Gerwell Fellowship annual report shows that 45% of all government-employed teachers will retire in the next decade – pointing to a potential teacher crisis.

“At least half the teachers in South Africa are in their 50s at the moment, and the retirement age is 60, so there is a looming crisis.”

This is compounded by the other major challenge facing the industry, being that there is poor uptake in teaching as a career of choice, said Hewitt. According to the fellowship, a recent OECD survey revealed that only 49% of teachers in South Africa regard teaching as their first-choice career.

This is significantly lower than international standards, said Hewitt.

A shortage of skilled educators due to retirement was previously raised by private higher education institution, Mancosa, which said that South Africa is not graduating an adequate number of teachers to meet the supply and demand.

“More teachers are leaving than entering the profession. Currently, the country’s initial teacher institutions graduate 15,000 new teachers per year. This is below the 25,000-mark required to maintain an effective teacher-pupil ratio,” said professor Magnate Ntombela, principal of Mancosa.

“There is a dire need to find 20,000 newly-qualified teachers each year to maintain current teacher-pupil ratios,” he said.

More graduates

The Department of Basic Education has previously responded to claims of a skills crisis in teaching, saying that the number of new teaching graduates is increasing every year.

“The number of initial teacher education graduates has grown over the last 10 years from an output of about 7,973 in 2010 to 31,799 in 2020,” it said.

The 25,000 graduates mark was reached in 2017, it said, adding that the current enrolment trends point to the upward trajectory in graduation numbers.

The output of graduates is favoured towards the Senior/Further Education and Training Phases (SP/FET) – partly because the two qualification pathways allow for SP/FET to qualify through both the Bachelor of Education (BEd) and Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) while Foundation Phase (FP) is largely limited to BEd pathway, the department said.

The average teacher attrition rate over is 15,200 a year – largely due to retirement, but also because of resignations, ill health and death, the department said.

The teacher supply in terms of quantity is reasonably adequate, the department said, at least from the analysis of the situation in public education.

Earnings

The department’s latest information on how much the average teacher varies between post levels.

The lowest entry-level salary for educators that meet the minimum qualification (Relative Equivalent Qualification Value 13) or a matric pass plus three years of study is R214,908.

However, an educator who studied for four years earns R284,238 annually. This salary can increase gradually with experience and age.

According to the Department of Education, age does affect the earnings of a teacher; however, a promotion to a higher post could lead to a quicker increase in earnings.

BUSINESS TECH

Stéphane Verguet, Harvard University

HUNDREDS of millions of children worldwide attend class every day. With such a wide reach, schools can effectively deliver a vast array of interventions such as immunisations and hygiene education. They can greatly improve the health of the students, who will learn better as a result.

School feeding programmes are among these interventions. They take a variety of forms, either targeting the poorest and most marginalised communities or universally covering all public schools in a given country. They are deployed daily, often within broader school health and nutrition programmes, and reach hundreds of millions of children every day.

The COVID-19 pandemic showed how important school feeding programmes are in achieving equality in health and education. School closures pushed millions of children away from learning – numerous students dropped out. This means they were also excluded from the health, nutritional and developmental benefits of receiving a daily meal, as well as the social protection it affords.

The African Union, the European Union, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and more than 65 countries have now gathered behind the School Meals Coalition, which aims to expand national school feeding programmes worldwide. The coalition set up the Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition, of which I am part.

The Research Consortium is charged with generating scientific evidence to guide the roll-out of effective national school health and school feeding programmes. One of its focus areas is quantifying the returns of these programmes across multiple sectors, including health, education, social protection and agriculture. To quantify the returns, it’s necessary to assess the programmes’ value for money, equity and gender impact.

Value for money of school feeding programmes

It’s costly to run school feeding programmes. But there are also potentially very large multi-sectoral returns. In a global value-for-money study, we developed a benefit-cost analysis framework that drew from secondary data on school feeding programmes in 14 countries, at various economic levels. Latin America, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa were included.

We looked at the impact and return on investment in four sectors: health and nutrition, education, social protection, and the local agricultural economy.

School feeding programmes are beneficial for health and nutrition. For instance, they can reduce anaemia and worm burdens, which are highly prevalent among poor children. These diseases pose long-term health and education challenges. Their reduction shows the possible magnitude of the health and nutrition benefits of school feeding programmes.School feeding programmes yield gains for the education sector. For example, they can increase school attendance and academic performance. This would permit major wage gains into the future adult working lives of students. A review found that one additional year of education could result in up to around 9% increased lifetime earnings.School feeding programmes, in giving a free meal, confer social protection to households and families, especially to the poorest. To translate this into a social protection impact, we can estimate the monetary value of the meals which families would not have to pay for.School feeding programmes can help develop local agricultural economies by boosting local farming activities. For this impact, one can compute the number of smallholder farmers who would produce food to sustain local school feeding programmes.

All these multi-sectoral returns can be either expressed as or converted into monetary values.

Return on investment

Our analysis showed that school feeding programmes present high value for money, and can lead to very large multi-sectoral returns. There could be considerable variations between countries depending on local contexts like burden of disease, wages, the costs of feeding a child, and the extent of farming and inequalities. Yet the benefits of having school feeding programmes far exceed the costs.

The overall benefit-cost ratio of school feeding programmes would vary between $7 and $35 from each $1 of investment. The benefit is much greater across several sectors than for just one standalone sector.

Going forward

National school health and school feeding programmes are critically important for the human capital accumulation of children and adolescents. They urgently need to be scaled up worldwide.

Increased attention needs to be devoted to how to decentralise and foster long-term, home-grown school feeding initiatives to ensure local sustainability.

THE CONVERSATION

IN early 2022, South African public higher education institutions eagerly moved back to face-to-face teaching, learning and engagement, resuming a degree of normalcy after four waves of the COVID-19 pandemic had considerably disrupted university activities at all levels in 2020 and 2021.

The national state of disaster was finally lifted in April 2022, after having been in place for 750 days, and, in June 2022, South Africa did away with the last remaining COVID-19 regulations regarding a mask mandate, limitations on gatherings and checks on incoming international travel.

Having completed the first semester of the 2022 academic year, we now have an opportune moment to consider how the transition back to campus has gone and how institutions are responding to their ever-changing environment, particularly with regard to their internationalisation activities.

As the second edition of the global survey on the impact of COVID-19 on higher education conducted by the International Association of Universities has shown, the pandemic has had a severe impact on internationalisation all around the globe.

While much of this impact has been negative, the pandemic has also resulted in several positive outcomes, with new opportunities and possibilities opening up in its wake.

Whatever the outcomes, it has become increasingly self-evident that, following the disruptions caused by COVID-19, we cannot simply pick up where we left off before the pandemic. This applies to higher education as much as to other spheres.

There have been regressions in many dimensions of life that we previously took for granted, and we now have to consider what new obstacles internationalisation is facing and how we are going to overcome these.

Air travel, for example, as a key mode of transport for international student and staff mobility programmes, was severely disrupted by COVID-related travel restrictions, resulting in cost and capacity reductions at airlines and airports around the globe.

Recently reported news of travellers experiencing chaos due to flight delays, cancellations and lost luggage – in some instances as a result of airlines getting grounded and ceasing business – serve as a case in point.

Globally, visa processing has slowed down. Over the past months, several academics based at South African institutions have had to cancel their plans to travel internationally for academic purposes, including conference attendance, due to delayed visa appointments.

Because of the current demand, getting a visa appointment can take up to six months, long after the conference dates that the academics were aspiring to attend.

Delays in processing police clearance certificates and visa applications are also evident within South Africa’s government departments, where the lack of capacity is seriously hindering the entry of academics and students into the country.

Concern over numbers

It is concerning that the numbers of international students attending South Africa’s higher education institutions have dropped in recent years.

In addition, the country’s universities have international students registered and in attendance whose study visa renewal applications for the 2022 academic year are still pending.

Despite being covered by current exemptions issued by the Department of Home Affairs while inside the country, not having one’s visa in order can be restricting and lead to feelings of anxiety and insecurity.

Furthermore, we are living in a world where inequality and poverty are on the rise, as highlighted and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

South Africa is facing multiple crises. We are living with poor service delivery, increased load-shedding (scheduled power cuts), increased cost of living, political uncertainty and a prevalence of serious mental health issues.

When populations face economic hardships, politics tends to move to the right. Not surprisingly, in this context, independent United Nations human rights experts have recently warned that discrimination against foreign nationals in South Africa has been institutionalised and that xenophobic mobilisation has become a campaign strategy for some of the country’s political parties.

Exploring challenges and solutions

Against this challenging backdrop, the International Education Association of South Africa, or IEASA will host its 24th conference titled ‘Reigniting and Reimagining Internationalisation of Higher Education in South Africa’ to explore the state of the nation and its impact on internationalisation.

Key concerns in this regard are how South African higher education is overcoming obstacles such as those outlined above, what type of innovation is taking place, regardless of the challenges, and how South Africa’s challenges and opportunities compare to other parts of the world.

More specifically, IEASA invited academics, researchers, professional practitioners, educators, students and innovators in higher education internationalisation to particularly consider the following questions:

• What changes have been brought about by the pandemic at the level of institutional internationalisation policies, strategies and funding flows?

• What is responsible internationalisation? How is it linked to other pertinent challenges such as achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and combating the climate crisis? How does it respond to vaccine inequalities and other global divides?

• What does a locally relevant and globally engaged South African university of the future look like? What kind of partners will it require? What should its priorities be?

• How is South Africa engaging with the rest of the world? Are our relationships with our partners changing? Are there distinctive changes in the relationships and engagements with partners in the Global North and partners in the Global South as a result of the pandemic?

• Which aspects and practices of internationalisation have been resumed, adapted or discontinued? How have the access of international students to South Africa and the access of South African students to higher education in other parts of the world been impacted?

• How has technology changed our perspectives on internationalisation practices? Which elements of internationalisation can be meaningfully conducted digitally and-or using blended approaches? How can we enhance intercultural competence in a digital world? How can digital and blended approaches to internationalisation foster inclusion and social justice?

• What lessons have we learned regarding the resilience of our students and staff, and how can we take this forward?

• Where has strong leadership in internationalisation of higher education emerged during this challenging period?

• How have the challenges of our times impacted on diversity, intercultural competence and human connections in South Africa and beyond?

Addressing these and other questions, speakers and presenters at the upcoming online IEASA conference will explore how what we have experienced and learned during the pandemic can help us reignite and reimagine internationalisation of higher education in South Africa and beyond.

Over two conference days, they will share their thoughts, research findings, lived experiences and best practice examples in a mix of plenary, parallel and poster sessions.

Proceedings will close with a panel of international leaders and experts representing several associations, all members of the Network of International Education Associations, sharing insights into the challenges and opportunities experienced in international higher education in their respective parts of the world.

On the third and final day of the conference, participants can attend a workshop titled ‘Fair cooperation in international research – A decolonial take to unpack global higher education and research-specific complexities, challenges and structural inequalities’, which will be considered from a Global South perspective and through a decolonial lens.

Participants will be engaged on how we can dismantle and de-centre existing Eurocentric hegemonies in higher education, knowledge production and research and contribute to decolonisation and plurality of knowledges.

The 24th IEASA Conference will be held online from 24 to 26 August 2022 and registration is open.

Orla Quinlan was the president of IEASA 2019-20, and has been an executive committee member of IEASA for six years. She is currently the IEASA treasurer. She is also the director of internationalisation at Rhodes University, South Africa.

Dr Samia Chasi is an international education practitioner, researcher and facilitator with more than 20 years of experience in this field. She is currently the manager of strategic initiatives, partnership development and research at IEASA.

UNIVERSITY WORLD NEWS|

STAFF REPORTER|

LEARNERS at Curro Heritage House in Morningside, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, are getting used to having a doctor in the classroom, after their teacher Caitlin Sam, graduated with a PhD in Information Technology from Durban University of Technology (DUT) last month.

Proving that is possible to be both a teacher and a learner, the 34-year-old mathematics teacher and academic head embarked on her studies in 2020 during the hard lockdown.

Not wanting her personal goals to come at the detriment of her learners, Dr. Sam made the brave choice to continue teaching whilst studying, and in doing so sacrificed her personal free time and plenty of sleep.

It has all been worth it though, especially as she was able to use her ten years of teaching experience to form the basis of her thesis, which investigated how the use of social computing in school-based learning could help benefit learners.

She now hopes the findings can be used to inform the way South African learners are taught in the future.

“During the lockdown, I realised that so many South African learners were unable to access uncapped Wi-Fi and were relying on costly data to connect to their Learning Management System. I really want to change this, so I used my thesis to establish if using social computing platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube can help remote teach learners, with Data Mining, Intelligent Decision Support Systems and Artificial Intelligence as tools,” explains Dr Sam.

As a Bachelor of Science Honours, Post Graduate Certificate in Education, and Masters in Business Administration graduate, Dr Sam prides herself in lifelong learning and has always been passionate about mathematics, artificial intelligence, and information technology.
As well as being a great role model to her learners, she is now looking forward to putting her newly acquired qualification to good use at Curro, leading learners into a rapidly changing digital era.

“We are incredibly proud of Dr Sam’s fantastic achievement. At Curro, we are always looking for ways to inspire and motivate our learners and Dr Sam is a shining example of what can be achieved if you are passionate, work hard and stay focussed. We especially appreciate her dedication to her learners during this challenging time. Her commitment and sacrifice is something everyone at our school can aspire to,” said Arthee Rajkumar, Executive Head at Curro Heritage House.

Dr. Caitlin Sam’s full thesis can be found here: Intelligent decision support systems for managing the diffusion of social computing in school-based ubiquitous learning | DUT Open Scholar.

INSIDE EDUCATION|

Higher Education and Training Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, has called on all employers to open their workplaces for the placement of Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) college students.

“The National Development Plan (NDP) emphasises the importance of workplace-based training in job creation and the need for TVET colleges to become preferred institutions for vocational education and training. It also stresses the role of Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) in supporting the development of relationships between educational institutions and employers,” Nzimande said.

The Minister was speaking at a Ministerial Summit on Strategic Industry Partnerships with TVET Colleges, currently underway at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

The two-day summit, which started on Wednesday, brings together the Post School Education and Training (PSET) sector, government departments, non-governmental organisations, labour and business to discuss how to strengthen TVET colleges partnerships, particularly work-based learning.

Nzimande noted that the expansion of workplace-based learning opportunities for students has proven to be a challenge in the TVET college sector.

He said that in response to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address, the department has made a commitment to ensure that 10 000 TVET college graduates are offered workplace experience so that they can complete their qualifications, thus improving their prospects for employability or starting their own small businesses.

“The primary aim of placements is to assist the transition of our young people from learning to working,” the Minister said.

He added that he had previously stated on numerous platforms that TVET college management, especially principals, must know that they are not running TVET colleges unless they prioritise building partnerships with industry.

The Minister has given a directive that all TVET college principals should sign new performance agreements that include industry partnerships as one of their key performance indicators.

“This decision was informed by the White Paper for Post-School Education and Training which requires Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) to be a central component of the college programmes and that the extent to which students are able to get placements in the workplace must be used as an important indicator for assessing the performance of the management of institutions.

“As TVET college principals, you owe it to the youth and the country to manage student admissions with the end in mind and this call for the establishment of strategic partnerships with industry. It will indeed be a travesty of justice and a serious indictment on us, as leaders, if we were to allow our inaction to cause TVET colleges to become a dead-end for students,” Nzimande said.

One of the leaders’ core responsibilities is to break down barriers to opportunities by creating pathways for young people to access skills training programmes and workplace-based training, articulate into higher education, and pursue self-employment without any hindrance.

Supporting TVET colleges innovation programmes

Meanwhile, Nzimande has asked the Department of Science and Innovation to assist by supporting innovation programmes and initiatives in TVET colleges, and the Higher Education and Training to help in introducing entrepreneurship programmes in the country’s colleges.

“Our vision remains that of providing an integrated, coordinated and highly articulated Post-School Education and Training System for improved economic participation and social development of our youth and adults.

“Our TVET colleges cater for many South Africans who need to improve their educational levels and/or acquire a skill. To this end, the ability of TVET college principals to lead the forging of partnerships with industry and/or workplaces is of critical importance,” the Minister said.

He added that by 2030, TVET colleges must be strong differentiated institutions, offering a range of high-quality programmes preparing students for the world of work and entrepreneurship.

“They must offer qualifications that are responsive to the needs of students, as well as regional and national skills demand”. 

SA NEWS

MINISTER of International Relations and Cooperation, Dr Naledi Pandor, has congratulated Professor Tshilidzi Marwala on being appointed the Rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo, Japan.

Marwala is currently the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg.

Previously, he was the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Internationalisation and the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, both at the University of Johannesburg.

“I wish Professor Marwala well as the incoming Rector of the United Nations University and have utmost confidence that through his leadership, the University will further contribute, through collaborative research and education, to efforts to resolve the pressing global problems of human survival, development and welfare, that are the concern of the United Nations, its peoples and member states,” Pandor said in a statement.

The United Nations University is a global think tank of 13 institutes in 12 countries.

It supports efforts to resolve global human development challenges working closely with other United Nations system organizations and leading research institutions.

“Professor Marwala is an accomplished scholar and thought leader with multi-disciplinary research interests that include the theory and application of artificial intelligence to engineering, computer science, finance, social science and medicine,’’ the United Nations said in a statement.

“He has an extensive track record in human capacity development and is committed to leveraging technology and global connectedness towards the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals.’’

He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, University of California at Berkeley, Wolfson College of the University of Cambridge and Nanjing Tech University. He has also previously served as a member of the International Consultative Council at the Silesian University of Technology in Poland and is a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Professor Marwala holds a doctorate specializing in Artificial Intelligence and Engineering from the University of Cambridge, a Master of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pretoria and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.

His work is internationally recognized and among other things he is a fellow of The World Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Science of South Africa, the African Academy of Sciences and the South African Academy of Engineering.

STAFF REPORTER

THE Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has announced new interventions to address severe learning losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

This will include time allocation for mathematics and reading each week in the foundation phase (grades 1 to 3), it said.

“These are the grades that were most severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, and we must do everything we possibly can to ensure that our youngest students are not disadvantaged in later grades.

“The intervention will see an extra two hours per week allocated to reading and one extra hour per week for mathematics, for all foundation phase students in the province – amounting to an increase of at least 60 learning hours per student in the subjects over the remainder of the year. The intervention will support other recovery plans that are already underway.”

These increases will be accommodated by adjusting the amount of time allocated to Life Skills, so the intervention will not increase the length of the school day, the department said.

“We recognise the importance of Life Skills teaching in the development of our students. It is therefore important that the remaining time for the subject be used effectively within the new timetables.”

Lost time 

Data provided by the department earlier in 2022 shows severe learning losses associated with the pandemic.

“While we had previously made great progress with a steady increase in performance in years preceding 2020, these gains have unfortunately been reversed.

“The greatest learning losses can be seen in the Foundation Phase. We have always maintained that the loss of contact (face-to-face) teaching time would affect our youngest students the most as they do not have the same self-discipline, maturity or structure that our older students would have to cope with rotating timetables and learning at home. ”

Comparing the 2021 and 2019 systemic test results, Grade 3 pass rates in mathematics dropped by 13.8 percentage points, and in language by 8.0 percentage points. These learning losses will have serious knock effects as these students progress through their school careers, the department said.

“A minute will be sent to schools outlining what is required and providing suggested timetables when implementing the intervention. All foundation phase teachers will participate in a webinar on Monday (25 July), to take them through the intervention before it is implemented.

“The intervention will be monitored over the remaining weeks of the school year, and a review report will be produced to inform the steps we will take in 2023. Schools that have already made their own adjustments to address learning losses in this phase will have the opportunity to request exemption from the change, if they can demonstrate that they are effectively addressing the losses.”

BUSINESS TECH

INTEL and teachers’ union the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), to meet the rising demand for digital skills for the country’s educators.

Signed in Johannesburg yesterday, the MOU sees the entities take the first steps towards kick-starting the Intel Skills for Innovation Programme (SFI) in SA, which aims to support inclusion of tech in education systems.

According to Intel, the SFI programme aims to equip teachers with the skills they need to expose their learners to emerging technologies from early in their education.

Furthermore, the company says exposure to new technology-based learning will aid in preparing learners for more complicated technology skills and lay the groundwork for a new generation of innovators capable of competing in a digital economy.

Launched last year, the SFI programme has already been implemented in over 30 countries, with over 10 000 teachers engaged with the programme’s content, according to Maurits Tichelman, Intel VP of sales and marketing and GM for EMEA territories.

He explained the intention is to help Naptosa-affiliated teachers infuse technology into everyday learning and teaching, to ensure today’s learners are equipped with skills for a technology-driven workforce of the future.

“The future demands a new set of skills. For hundreds of years, educators have been using books, papers and pencils,” he stated.

“New technology resources need to be just as reliable and just as easy to use, and be able provide a richer experience. A richer experience will allow our children to be much more creative, learn easily and have the visualisation and interaction available to them.

“This initiative will help current teachers to upscale and have the capabilities to tap into innovation and new technologies.”

Tichelman indicated Intel intends to scale the SFI programme even further in the upcoming years.

The South African education old guard has, over the years, tried to ramp-up ICT and e-education adoption.

The Department of Basic Education and provincial education departments have attempted to do this by supplying electronic devices to learners and teachers, including access to e-learning programmes, to digitally upskill and prepare the future workforce.

This process, however, was snowballed by the advent of COVID-19 in 2020, as teachers and learners had to resort to remote learning to keep up with the academic year.

Industry commentators have also been vocal that decision-making stakeholders in the education system should, at the very least, consider blended models of teaching and learning, in the wake of the pandemic.

Basic education minister Angie Motshekga previously stated the Commission on ICT, digitisation, e-education management, distance learning and online schools found the COVID-19 pandemic has dictated a review on how the basic education sector conducts business.

At the MOU signing, a Naptosa official expressed that a lot of the teachers struggled with the move to online education, as a result of the pandemic.

Through the programme, the teachers’ union also wants to improve teacher-confidence in terms of engaging with technology, said the official.

“Naptosa opted for the Intel programme because it aims to equip teachers with basic-to-advanced digital skills. It’s a four-level programme, with level one providing the basic computer literacy skills, going up all the way to level four.

“The rollout plan has been for us to train master trainers in all of the nine provinces, which is the first step that we have done. The first stage has been completed.

“We’ve identified Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Free State, Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces where the programme will be rolled out.

“Going forward, we want to take it to other provinces, and our master trainers are excited about implementing the training and showing teachers how to bring technology within the classroom and making it a part of everyday learning,” the official concluded. 

ITWEB