EDWIN NAIDU

NORTH WEST University (NWU) academic in the African Centre for Disaster Studies, Professor Livhuwani Nemakonde, says the heavy rainfall experienced in South Africa in recent weeks is due to a combination of factors.

“Climatologists have indicated that this is because of the La Niña phenomenon. La Niña (Spanish for little girl) is the opposite of an El Niño (little boy), which usually predicts low rainfall for South Africa. In simple terms, this means that most parts of the country will receive above average summer rainfall, and it is for this reason that seven of the nine provinces received huge amounts of rainfall that led to flooding,” said Prof Nemakonde.

He said the impact of the floods is relatively high, particularly in parts of Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo.

“The amount of rainfall plays a major role, but other human-related factors such as residing in low laying areas, flood plains, riverbanks and poor infrastructure contribute to the impact of floods,” added Prof Nemakonde.

He said weather forecasts warn that the trend might continue into the last week of February and that South Africa will likely receive more rain into autumn.

With seven of the nine provinces affected by the floods that resulted in the loss of lives and destruction of infrastructure, the government declared a national disaster on 13 February 2023.

According to Prof Nemakonde, government officials argued that the disaster declaration would help expedite resource availability to those most affected.

INSIDE EDUCATION

STAFF REPORTER

ENTRIES are being sought for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secondary School
Essay Competition to recognise the best work in the region.

The 2023 SADC Secondary School Essay competition topic is: How can SADC promote Industrialisation for inclusive, resilient and sustainable economic growth?

The topic is derived from the theme of the 42nd Ordinary SADC Summit of Heads of State, and Government held virtually by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kinshasa, on 17th August 2022, which is: Promoting industrialisation through agro-processing, mineral beneficiation, and regional value chains for inclusive and resilient economic growth.  
 
The wording of the think piece and content should aim at addressing the topic and, at the same time, promoting the SADC’s Objectives and Common Agenda.

All entries should be typed and submitted electronically in Microsoft Word document format.

All essays entering the competition should be in one of the SADC working languages, i.e. English, Portuguese and French.

The essay should be between 900 and 1000 words.

The deadline for submission of entries to the Department of Basic Education is 28 April 2023.

Winners and Prizes

The SADC Secretariat has allocated USD1000 as prize money for the national competition winners in each Member State. The prize money will be divided as follows:
 USD 500 for the first prize
 USD 300 for the second prize
 USD 200 for the third prize

Each candidate will receive the equivalent prize money in South African Rands. The three national winning essays will be forwarded to the SADC Secretariat for consideration in the regional
competition.
 
Eligibility Criteria:

 Applicants must reside in South Africa,
 Applicants must be currently attending secondary school,
 Essays must not be more than 1000 words but not less than 900 (Arial 1.5 line spacing for
typed essays),
 Submissions must be the unaided work of applicants,
 Submissions should be in English,
 The name of entrants should be the same as those that appear on the Identification
Document (ID) or Passport, and
 Applicants must be willing and fit to travel.

To submit an entry:
The learner should forward their essays to sadcessay@dbe.gov.za.

For enquiries regarding the competition, one of the following officials may be contacted:​
 Mr Lucky Maluleke: maluleke.l@dbe.gov.za | 012 357 3494
 Ms Zanele Rakumaku: rakumaku.z@dbe.gov.za | 012 357 3485
 Ms Matome Sekgota: sekgota.m@dbe.gov.za | 012 357 3373

The closing date for entries is 28 April 2023.

INSIDE EDUCATION

EDWIN NAIDU

YOUNG South Africans aspire to do work that is both meaningful and fulfilling, according to the Frame Your Future survey recently conducted by SACAP (The South African College of Applied Psychology). 

The online survey canvassed 850 internet-connected respondents aged between 17 and 20 years who are recent school leavers or currently in Grades 11 and 12 to gauge their hopes and fears about the future. 

It found that 65% of the learners on the last leg of school aim to enter tertiary studies once they have matriculated, with only 7% looking to enter the workforce immediately and just 5% considering a gap year.

Among the students surveyed, 57% said that researching their study options online was the dominant source of information they used to decide their study path.
 
“What was striking in the Frame Your Future results was this generation’s desire to ensure they care about the work they’re involved in and, most importantly, that their work makes a difference to the world,” says Dr Lauren Martin, the Deputy Dean of Learning & Teaching at SACAP.

“Over half of the respondents said that they want to do work that they care about and that makes a difference. 40% have ambitions to do ‘something extraordinary with my work,’ and 38% think they will love their work,” she adds.

Martin says these sentiments were ranked far more highly than money as the be-all and end-all of
the work. 

These results highlight how important it is for school leavers to integrate their passions and interests with their skills and capabilities when choosing tertiary study paths.
 
Given the current state of the world and overall anxiety about the fast-changing future of work, she adds that these young South Africans indicated a generally positive outlook at this life stage, with 43% saying they wake up feeling hopeful and an additional 14% who are excited to face the day. 

While almost half the respondents are temporarily open to future international work opportunities, only 19% say they would seriously consider emigrating from South Africa.
 
Dr Martin says a significant proportion of young people think they can contribute to their country, with 58% concerned about climate change impacts and 55% believing in the responsibility to vote.

SACAP offers a range of registered and accredited courses ranging from higher certificates, a diploma and undergraduate degrees to postgraduate qualifications and specialised programmes at its Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Pretoria, and online campuses.

Applied Psychology forms the core of each course, and topics include Psychology, Communication, Business Management, Human Resource Management, Social Work and Coaching.

“We are encouraged that many young South Africans value personal growth and face their concerns about the country and the world they live in with the question: how can I make a difference?  They need to develop resilience in facing fears and challenges as they step onto study paths that will lead them into the world of work. At the same time, they are well-supported in gaining the knowledge and skills that will enable them to be positive forces in their future workplaces,” says Martin.

To learn more, visit sacap.edu.za.

INSIDE EDUCATION

EDWIN NAIDU

EVERY year, almost one in ten teenage deaths in South Africa result from suicide. Up to 20% of high school learners have tried to take their own lives for various reasons, the most popular being depression, anxiety and suicide.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 700 000 people die by suicide yearly. That’s an average of one person every 40 seconds. Suicide is the 4th leading cause of death among 15- to 19-year-olds globally.

Teen Suicide Prevention Week is being observed from the 14 th  to the 21 st  of February, focusing on raising awareness and preventing teen suicides.

Nkazimulo Zitha, Head of School Achievement at SPARK School, says it is important for schools to create a safe space for scholars who may want to discuss personal issues ranging from bullying, trauma, anxiety, or any problems affecting their mental health.

It is essential to understand the factors contributing to suicidal teenagers in schools, for teachers/principals to identify suicidal behaviour in scholars, especially teens in schools and explore ways parents can have a productive conversation about suicide with their children.

Schools and communities team up and can work together to combat teen suicide. SPARK Schools are active in educating learners to help prevent suicide.

INSIDE EDUCATION

EDWIN NAIDU

SCHOOL safety in South Africa remains a top priority for the government and reports of violence between learners and educators are a severe cause for concern, noted Cabinet in a statement last Thursday.

While the Department of Basic Education has implemented mechanisms to combat this scourge, parents and guardians have been urged to collaborate with school authorities and learners to ensure that schools remain safe places for learners to develop and become responsible citizens.

“The safety of our educators at schools is also paramount,” the statement said.

The cabinet reassures South Africans that the South African Police Service (SAPS) is being strengthened to prevent crime. If you have information that can help expose people involved in illegal activities, call Crime Stop at 0800 10111.

INSIDE EDUCATION

NEW AI chatbots – ChatGPT and Google Bard – have the ability to help those in the customer service and education industries, experts say – but won’t be removing the human element from jobs any time soon.

After launching in November last year, OpenAI’s ChatGPT is no longer the only chatbot on the market after Google Bard was announced last week.

Despite making an error during its official demo – causing Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc’s stock price to drop by more than $100 billion – Bard is expected to challenge ChatGPT in what has become a hotly contested and often controversial space.

Google is launching Bard to stop Microsoft’s Bing – which uses ChatGPT – from taking some of its marketshare. According to the most recent data from Statista, Google’s search engine market share is 84.08% compared to Bing’s 8.95%.

Despite the recent popularity of chatbots, there are some concerns regarding the technology, as it may give incorrect information – as shown in Bard’s demo – or that it might lead to plagiarism in written works.

However, those in the education and customer service fields have expressed excitement over the new technology as it can significantly improve the time taken to do administrative tasks.

Education 

Adam Fairall at Reddam House Atlantic Seaboard said that teachers should embrace chatbots as the education sector can not simply block students from accessing the new technology.

Fairall said that, when used correctly, chatbots can reduce lesson preparation time by 80% as lesson plans can be created digitally within minutes, giving teachers more time to assist students with learning barriers and deliver improved lessons.

Chatbots will also allow for higher-order thinking among students, allowing them the opportunity to think creatively when delivering work and solving problems in the classroom. However, he warned that educators should be on alert for students who have not learnt the baseline knowledge.

Using chatbots can thus reduce preparation and learning times for both teachers and students, but traditional take-home assessments like essays are not viable with chatbots – as students can easily cheat, with teachers needing to think flexibly when assessing students.

Fairall states that machine learning will require students to become more practical, as they are not assessed on the concept but rather on how they can use the concept practically to solve a problem.

Marketing and Customer Service 

Algorithm Agency said that chatbots will help digital agencies with improved content generation. Using automated technology can help digital agencies produce high-quality content far quicker than it would be to manually produce the content.

However, the Algorithm Agency said that human writers will not be replaced, as chatbots produce copy in a logical and well-structured way which saves time, but it is very easy to see that the copy is AI-generated – with search engines possibly down-weighting AI content in the future.

Moreover, all online content will sound similar if it is AI-generated. The Algorithm Agency questions if anyone would want to read online content if it lacked a brand’s voice, tone or creativity.

The Algorithm Agency said that the sweet spot is where tech and automation meet with human creative thinking.

As chatbots bring improved efficiency into the content creation process, strategists have more time to focus on other key elements of the business.

Another key use for chatbots would be imposing the customer experience due to their ability to respond to customer questions.

Digital agencies will thus be able to provide more personalised and relevant experiences for customers, which increases customer engagement and loyalty, the agency said.

For example, last week, the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) announced that it would use ChatGPT in customer and employee services.

DEWA said that this introduction of ChatGPT will endure productivity and meet current and future needs.

Business Tech

IN a provocative start to the University of Pretoria’s (UP) 2023 Senate Conference, speakers challenged the academic community to engage in uncomfortable conversations and to steer away from “tinkering at the edges of change”.

Setting the tone for forthright discussions on curriculum transformation – the theme of this year’s Senate Conference at the Future Africa campus – Professor Siona O’Connell of the School of Arts pointed to UP’s own problematic history and urged Senate members to “do our past justice”.

While race-based forced removals were under way across Pretoria in the 1950s and 1960s, including in Garsfontein, Marabastad, Eersterust and Wonderboom, the University had remained aloof.

“From the Humanities Building and all across the beautiful campuses, staff and students would have overlooked Pretoria’s shame,” Prof O’Connell said in a keynote address on Thursday, 16 February, the first day of the two-day Senate Conference, titled: “Turning the Tide: Reimagining Curriculum Transformation at UP”.

Gaps in UP’s own history

So removed had the University been from the apartheid-induced turmoil around it, she said, such as the mass arrests and detentions, consumer boycotts, factory strikes, work and school stay-aways that lasted into the 1980s, that critical moments in its own history went unrecorded.

One such moment was Chief Albert Luthuli’s visit to the University in the early 1960s, when the then-president-general of the African National Congress fell to the ground after being assaulted by a young student.

However, there is nothing in the UP Archives to show that that the visit had even happened. From what is available in the archives today, “Albert Luthuli never had the opportunity to visit the University,” said Prof O’Connell.

Even in 2015 and 2016, amid the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall protests, UP “squandered” the opportunity to make amends, not only to the Luthuli family but also for events of long ago, colonialism and slavery, that had made such moments possible.

“In the wake of student protests, the opportunity to transform was left spinning and trapped, unable to breathe in a vortex of metal turnstiles,” she said, referring to the security measures put in place in reaction to the protests.

Now, in 2023, UP has an “incredible opportunity” for redress. “We will imagine and re-imagine curricula of the sort that responds to South Africa and to students who are the first from their community to make it here, who may come from homes that are headed by young people, who may be afraid that they do not belong.”

Becoming known for boldness and compassion

“By setting out to understand all its students, and thinking and acting boldly, the University can stake its place as a benchmark space of higher learning in, and of, Africa,” said Prof O’Connell. “We can be known as the African university capable of having the most difficult of conversations, of not tinkering with the edges of change, and of looking at the past with compassion.”

Professor Tawana Kupe, UP Principal and Vice-Chancellor, who gave the opening address at the conference, agreed that “you can’t tinker at the top or on the sides with education”. He said change has to be articulated right through the organisation.

During question time, he and other Senate members emphasised the necessity for UP and its staff to embrace curriculum transformation wholeheartedly and not to avoid difficult questions – including the issue of whether the UP has too many students who should rather be attending technical vocational education and training (TVET) colleges.

“We are ducking these questions,” Prof Kupe said.

No transformation without language change

The point was strongly made that the use of African languages and curriculum transformation go hand in hand.

“As a university, we need to take the role of African languages seriously. The monolingual model is excluding people who have the potential to succeed,” said Professor Chika Sehoole, Dean of the Faculty of Education, during a panel discussion on African languages in higher education.

He gave the example of a taxi driver he had encountered who speaks 10 African languages. “He asked, ‘Teach me English, it will open doors for me’,” said Prof Sehoole. He noted the irony that, by normative standards, someone who could speak one language, English, was considered intelligent, while a person who can speak 10 languages but not English was considered the opposite.

“That is an indictment on how we judge the inability to speak English, as well as how we speak English,” said Professor Loretta Feris, Vice-Principal: Academic, who was facilitating the discussion.

The notion that only certain accents are acceptable must be dispelled, said Professor Mbulungeni Madiba of Stellenbosch University, adding that it is important to help people understand that there is no preferred accent.

The 2023 Senate Conference continues on Friday, 17 February, with a combination of plenary sessions featuring speakers from academia, industry and indigenous knowledge practice, as well as breakaway sessions.

Curriculum transformation in practice

Four case studies on curriculum transformation in practice were presented during the first day of the 2023 Senate Conference:

Dr Lelanie Smith and Thabang Ngwenya from the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology (EBIT) spoke about their work in “Vertically integrated projects: Rethinking the Engineering Curriculum Group.

Dr Heather Thuynsma and Yanga Malotana of Faculty of Humanities presented their work on “Comparative Regional Politics: The Global Classroom”.

Professor Liz Wolvaardt from the School of Health Systems and Public Health spoke about the Online Post Graduate Diploma in Public Health.

Prof Louise Whittaker from the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) presented on gamification of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration.

Other conference highlights

For his welcoming speech, Prof Kupe had two sets of prepared remarks – one of which was written by the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. He shared this after reading the first set of prepared remarks, from ChatGPT, adding that he would not be reading the second set as it was largely similar to the ChatGPT version.

However, what ChatGPT had been unable to do was provide a long historical reflection on human civilisation and knowledge. It was important to the curriculum transformation debate to go further back in history than imperialism and colonialism, which were relatively recent developments.

When going back to the Gold Collections, such as the Mapungubwe Gold Collection known for its gold artefacts, it becomes clear that science was at the heart of the Mapungubwe kingdom’s way of life.

“Colonialism and apartheid do not define all of human history,” Prof Kupe said. “We need to go back to where knowledge is created, to where we came from.”

SUPPLIED: UP

THE 2023 FNB Varsity Cup rugby tournament gets underway on Monday, 20 February 2023 and the University of Johannesburg (UJ) senior rugby team is ready for the challenge. For the second season, FNB UJ goes into the tournament led by two co-captains, Kelvin Kanenungo and Buhlebenkosi Qaba, who will share the responsibility of guiding the team in their quest for lifting the trophy.

Under the leadership of Head Coach, Jonathan Mukwena, FNB UJ will be approaching the 2023 campaign differently with a squad made up of new and returning players. In 2022, the Orange Army gave a good account of themselves on the pitch, narrowly losing few games with marginal points. In their 2022 games, FNB UJ played with more vigor in the first halves of the matches and took the foot off the pedal in the second halves. They finished in 6th place on the log.

However, this year, FNB UJ has prepared well for the season. Their early return to the training grounds in January will be tested during their opening match against North West University (NWU Pukke) on Monday, 20 January 2023 at the Fanie Du Toit Sports Ground at NWU at 19:00.

Previously, FNB UJ finished in critical positions on the log in the 2020 and 2021 FNB Varsity Cup tournaments, risking relegation. The arrival of Coach Mokwena proved to have made a difference, moving FNB UJ out of the relegation zone in 2022. Out of the nine (9) matches played in the 2022 season, FNB UJ won four, lost four and drew one.

Ahead of their opening encounter, Coach Mukwena says, “I believe the many weeks we have spent in preparation for this tournament have been on point. We had a few disappointments with a few players not being able to come through but that is part of coaching, and it allows the next players to prove themselves. Generally, we are happy with where we are and hopefully, with time, we will see a few new stars emerge out of UJ rugby.”

After the UJ-NWU match, UJ will face Wits University in a highly anticipated Johannesburg derby on Monday, 27 February 2023 at the Wits Stadium. The Orange Army will play their first home game on Monday, 06 March 2023 against FNB UCT Ikeys at the UJ Stadium in Westdene.

A number of new faces feature in both the FNB UJ squad line-up and management. Co-captains says, “Well, the goal is pretty straight forward, it’s winning the competition. If we do not win it, we will finish in the top 4 positions. As a group, this year we are adding more intensity and aggression to our game.”

Co-captain Qaba added, “We have to make the right decisions at the right times and that comes from confidence and the training sessions we had. This will put us where we want to be in terms of winning games in the tournament.”

Unlike the previous campaign, this year FNB UJ will have a tougher programme as they will have less home games. Their pre-season preparations will come handy for their away games, having played friendly matches against the Griffons and UP-Tuks a few weeks ago.

SUPPLIED: UJ

THE University of Johannesburg (UJ) has unveiled its new electric vehicle (EV) buses, in what is a first for a South African university. The EV buses, which will be added to the existing fleet, have already begun ferrying students between various campuses. 

The buses are the latest innovation in UJ’s ongoing efforts at going green, as part of the University’s plans to reduce carbon emissions, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 defines green cities as those that are dedicated to achieving environmental, social, and economic sustainability, with a focus on minimising inputs of energy, water, and food, and drastically reducing waste, heat output, and pollution. UJ has, in recent years, made strategic moves to improve its sustainability footprint. 

On Tuesday, 7 February 2023, there was excitement all around as one of the two brightly painted EV buses, branded in UJ’s signature orange and white, pulled out of Auckland Park Kingsway (APK) Campus into Joburg’s morning traffic. Aboard the bus were members of the University’s Executive Leadership Group (ELG), who were travelling to a meeting at one of the University’s off-campus venues in the city. And true to its nature, and unlike its diesel counterparts, the electric bus did not belch any toxic fumes. Not only do the EV buses produce much lower carbon emissions, but they also perform well, offering a smooth ride even on steep routes. 

Decreasing UJ’s carbon footprint

Special Projects advisor Professor Andre Nel explained the process that led to this project coming to fruition. “It started more than 18 months ago, as part of our drive to reduce our carbon footprint at UJ. We’ve always had a strong focus on sustainability issues. After implementing large numbers of solar panels, one of the next questions was how can we further make UJ sustainable? After some research, the obvious answer was how we were going to cut our carbon emissions in one area, and that area was transport. Transport makes up about four-and-a-half percent of UJ’s footprint and reducing that in any way is something we desired”. 

So what will happen when load shedding strikes and the buses can’t be charged? And what about their environmental friendliness, given that they are charged using coal-generated electricity? Dr Mpoti Ralephata, UJ’s Chief Operations Officer, was quick to allay such concerns. He said 15% of our energy at UJ comes from solar, which is enough to power the buses. “We will have to have loadshedding for more than five hours a night to affect overnight charging,” he said. 

4IR in action

Among those aboard the buses was Dr Nolitha Vukuza: Senior Executive Director: University Relations, Student Affairs and UJ Sport. “My experience is quite unprecedented because I’ve never been on an electric bus before. This is a day of celebration… We keep on talking about the fourth industrial revolution, and today it’s all about 4IR in action. I am also happy that the new VC (Vice-Chancellor and Principal Designate, Professor Letlhokwa Mpedi) has been talking about 4IR for societal impact. What a way to make it impactful,” she said, shortly before the bus drove off. 

The buses may at first glance – and from a distance – give the impression that they are part of the generation of the existing fleet. It’s only once you hop on that you realise that you have indeed entered into the fourth industrial revolution.

Most impressive is the amount of noise you will experience while the bus is running. Unlike the normal diesel-powered engines, the EV buses are almost silent – with the loudest sound being the humming of the air conditioning system.

Each bus has a capacity of 76 passengers, with 57 seated and 19 standing. 

For added safety, the buses are fitted with closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras and stop buttons.

The stop buttons make communication with operators easier, as passengers can draw the driver’s attention without being intrusive when approaching their destination. Adding to the high-tech design of the buses is that they are equipped with USB charging ports so that passengers can keep their gadgets running while onboard, for convenience. 

To get a bus fully charged, it would need to be left on the plug point for at least five-and-a-half hours. But that’s time worth investing in because it powers the bus enough to enable it to cover up to a 350 km range. The distance is significantly less than the 200 km of the entire bus route that the buses will cover. There are currently two charge points for the buses, one on campus and one at the bus depo.

An added beauty of these buses is that they are a gift that keeps on giving. Over the average 15-year lifespan which is expected that a bus will cover, these buses will save on fuel costs.

Another advantage is that they require less maintenance than their diesel counterparts. Due to the high-tech nature of the EV buses, and specifically because of the new technology that they come with, it is envisaged that drivers will be retrained in how to handle this fleet. 

Prof Mpedi was brimming with excitement at seeing the University’s vision come to life: “These buses are an example of 4IR in action. They are part of a legacy that we want to leave for future generations. As a testament to our position as a leader, we are the first university to make use of EV buses for commercial purposes.”

Prof Mpedi added that the buses are aligned with the institution’s sixth strategic objective, which is ‘fitness for global excellence and stature’.

“These buses are a tangible contribution towards achieving that goal. They are also a physical manifestation of our commitment towards the goal of being a sustainable institution that strives to implement improvements and actions across all spheres of its campus activities. We firmly believe that sustainable development is a long-term commitment. We aim to contribute to sustainability by reducing our environmental footprint while enhancing our contributions to the social and economic development of South Africa.” 

Engineering News

THE assault on public education currently unfolding in state legislatures across the United States stands to annually transfer tens of billions of dollars from public treasuries to the bank accounts of upper-income families.

Those dollars, which otherwise would have gone to public schools, will instead reimburse parents currently paying private school tuition. It’s a reverse Robin Hood scheme that Americans would hate if they fully understood what was going on.

That’s not the sales pitch, of course. As Betsy DeVos and her allies like to put it, their cause is “education freedom.” They want American families to have “options” beyond their local public schools. And their plan for creating those options is to push various forms of school vouchers.

The money that otherwise would have gone to local schools, instead, would be given to families. Families could then take those dollars—sometimes loaded on an actual debit card—and spend them at whatever kind of school, or on whatever kind of educational product, they want.

There are many reasons to dislike this plan. Public schools are open to all, meaning that they can’t turn students away on the basis of characteristics like ability or identity. And public schools serve the public good. That’s why we fund them with our tax dollars—because we expect them to serve all of us. Private schools, by contrast, can turn students away for nearly any reason, including that they have disabilities that make them more expensive to educate.

As more states adopt programs that use taxpayer dollars to fund private schools, taxpayers are increasingly footing the bill for discrimination. In Florida, for instance, a religious school that notified families this fall that LGBTQ students were no longer welcome and would be asked to leave immediately still receives more than $1.6 million a year in public funds through the state’s private school voucher program.

But school voucher plans are a raw deal not just for public schools and the students who attend them but also for taxpayers. Programs like the one jammed through by the Republican legislature in Iowa this week stand to immediately transfer massive amounts of cash directly from state treasuries to the families that least need it. While proponents, like Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, sold the plan as a way to give choices to poor and middle-class families, the program will chiefly subsidize the parents who already send their kids to private schools.

The cost of that subsidy is significant—an estimated $340 million each year once the plan is fully phased in—and will be borne by the 500,000 students who attend the state’s underfunded public schools.

And it’s not just in Iowa that Republicans are pulling off this reverse Robin Hood maneuver. In Arizona, where lawmakers recently made all students eligible for school vouchers, 75 percent of the students who applied for the new subsidy never attended public school. The same dynamic is playing out in New Hampshire, where GOP legislators enacted an “education freedom” program over stiff public opposition. At Laconia Christian Academy, for instance, all but two families in the school took advantage of the program, pulling roughly half a million dollars out of the public treasury.

While earlier voucher programs, like the one adopted in Milwaukee more than 30 years ago, were limited to families enrolled in public schools, and came with strict income qualifications, the plans being adopted now dispense with any such limits, or adopt them only as temporary gestures designed as political cover.

The real goal is always a universal voucher open to all. And the math here isn’t pretty. Approximately 10 percent of students are presently enrolled in private schools—that’s just under 5 million students who would qualify for vouchers worth roughly $10,000 each, depending on the per-pupil expenditures in their states. When public schools are already systematically underfunded in most parts of the country, draining off an additional $50 billion each year will hurt quite a bit.

Who will benefit? Boosters claim it will be students presently denied “options.” Yet most families won’t leave their public schools. According to polling, most are satisfied with their children’s schools, even if they’d like to see more resources directed to them. And many families—like those in rural areas, or low-income families with limited access to transportation—are unlikely to ever have many viable “options.” Forty-two of Iowa’s 99 counties don’t have a single private school. Neither do the majority of zip codes in Utah, where yet another budget-busting voucher program is under consideration. For rural communities, draining resources from the public system is just another disinvestment in their children.

Mainly, the beneficiaries of these schemes will be the families presently paying private school tuition. An extra $10,000 or so each year, for each child presently enrolled in private school, will pay for things that will remain out of reach for most American families—a luxury vacation, a down payment on a new car, an addition to the retirement account. For those families wealthy enough to stockpile voucher money while continuing to pay private school tuition, the additional funds may even pay for college, as one Iowa Republican acknowledged last year.

Those left behind will simply have fewer resources. And that’s part of the design. Cutting the nation’s public school budgets off at the knees will dramatically reduce the tax burden on the wealthy. Equally important, it will shift schooling out of the realm of democratic politics and into the free market. And perhaps best of all in the eyes of voucher supporters, it will deal a fatal blow to teachers unions.

In an age of staggering income inequality, America’s public education system remains one of the last and best mechanisms for advancing equal opportunity. And that is precisely why it is a target. For all their high-minded rhetoric about “education freedom,” advocates of voucher schemes have repeatedly tipped their hands, revealing what they really value. They’ve got their own version of Robin Hood, and he already has his hands in the public purse.

THE NATION