What does it really mean to be “ready” for university? Research involving more than 3000 high school learners and first year university students have tried to answer this complex question.
The debate around whether fences aid or curb poaching continues while units try hunt poachers.
John Hrusa/EPA
Dropping fences can help the fight against poaching by inviting the people living in surrounding areas to take care of the animals.
A South African farmer from Piketberg 100km outside Cape Town inspects the dry soil in his field of sewn wheat. It is cheaper to import the crop than to grow it commercially.
Epa/Nic Bothma
South Africa’s agricultural industry has struggled over the past 20 years due to the country’s rush to liberalise the sector while other countries continued to support their farmers.
South Africa needs to ensure that it is equipped to deal with bioterrorism attacks and possible laboratory outbreaks.
Mariana Bazo/Reuters
In the science world, laboratories are essential but safety precautions should be taken to prevent any incidents like the Ebola outbreak or biochemical attacks.
Every year, more than 20,000 babies are stillborn in South Africa.
Jim Young/Reuters
For South Africa to reduce its stillbirth rate in line with its international pledges, it will have to scale up its several of its maternal health programmes.
Rather than rejecting all indigenous knowledge as witchcraft or as somehow inferior, we should explore the value in different knowledge systems.
Goran Tomasevic/Reuters
New evidence shows marked similarities between two fossils – one from Brazil, the other South Africa. This confirms compelling geological findings that continents were once one giant land mass.
US TV presenter Melissa Bachman takes advantage of canned hunting regulations in South Africa.
Melissa Bachman/Instagram
Hunting is a major source of controversy on the African continent. Many nations have strict laws against hunting while others see it as an opportunity to make money.
Many South African schools lack basic equipment like chairs, textbooks, pens and blackboards. Research suggests they could still succeed – by taking learners’ ideas and concerns more seriously.
Ryan Gray/Reuters
What happens when a school doesn’t have many resources but teachers and the principal really listen to learners’ ideas and fears? The results, research finds, can be remarkable.
Oprah Winfrey’s academy for girls in South Africa is well-resourced and produces good results. These factors mean it is in the minority.
Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
Parents want to know how much they need to spend to secure a good education - and job prospects - for their children. But is it as simple as balancing your own books and ignoring the bigger picture?
If you think about it, producing graduates who can think critically is good for any society.
From www.shutterstock.com
There is a chasm between the research knowledge base about reading literacy and teachers’ classroom practices. Standardisation could be a big part of the solution.
A page from a 1934 sex education manual that, like many of its era, managed to be less about sex than about policing racial boundaries.
RPH West, Facts about Ourselves for Growing Boys and Girls (Public Health Department of the City of Johannesburg and the South African Red Cross Society, 1934). Wits Historical Papers, South African Institute of Race Relations Collection, AD 843 RJ/NA 18.
In South Africa’s segregated pre-apartheid state, even sex education was racialised. Christian missionaries had very different lessons for black and white children.
Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini with the late former South African president Nelson Mandela and Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Mandela combined a deep faith in culture and constitutionalism.
Reuters
The relationship between Africa’s two great powers, Nigeria and South Africa, has had its ups and downs, but has been relatively cordial since 1999.
Wife of the late former South African President Nelson Mandela, Winnie Madikizela Mandela (centre), led a march during a ‘Women’s Day’ rally in Pretoria in 2000.
Reuters
The release of Eugene de Kock, former commander of the notorious Vlakplaas counterinsurgency unit responsible for numerous clandestine assassinations in apartheid South Africa, raises a number of critical…
The beginning of the academic year in South Africa is the most stressful time for parents of children who come from poor, rural and working class backgrounds. This when they have to confront the difficult…
It’s high stakes when the education minister announces South Africa’s matric results.
GovernmentZA
In South Africa, as in many countries, the release of senior secondary school exam results, referred to locally as “the Matric”, causes a media furore every year. At 18-years-old, students either pass…
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand