Blog Articles

I recently posted a question to a group of school principals, “Is your school just an academically performing school or is it also relevant and responsive in addressing the challenges of this time?” Many principals were at pains trying to figure out where they could place their schools. While a school can have both high performance and relevance, many of our township and village schools may have high academic performance but lack the other.

I also questioned one principal...

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The measures introduced since the Covid-19 has dealt the education sector an enormous blow which many would not be comfortable to talk about soon. Social distancing in the school environment meant that the schools needed to find a way of running timetables that are staggered to give space for this social distancing method. Some schools opted for a one week in and one week out in a bid to accommodate both social distancing and class attendance. Well-resourced schools worked...

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The covid-19 pandemic has amplified the widening gap in basic education acquisition in South Africa. Last year I indicated in one of my Facebook posts that the greatest challenge of education during the covid era is the existing inequality among South Africans and the understaffing in schools. These two factors continue to create challenges which render all the daily spinning of education officials irrelevant and unproductive. Let me show you how the two factors continue to...

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Every time I ask a school principal a question about the functionality of their school, I always get the grade 12 pass rate. I have also come to realize that even parents make the same mistake when they choose the school for their children, especially at high school level. This is a wrong approach and a wrong narrative punted by education officials, especially at the highest level. There is more to the functioning of a school.

Few years ago when the education department in...

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