A new education system for South Africa

[desA]

Oh dear, did the sky fall last evening?

[at]adrianh
As I read your response, I see more & more the need to move education out of a traditional school setting, where a few ruffians & louts can smash the experience for the others. The human-human interaction, collective-education model, will require a total re-think, if it is to succeed - on a mass scale.

Home schooling, via various means - tablets, downloadable classes, pdf books, is a useful model. These learners often end up completing their basic educations at a young age. They are also not exposed to the bullies. If authorities are aggrieved due to loss of book sales - then tough takkie. At that point, the parents take responsibility for the actions of their progeny. If they are too lazy, or apathetic, then that becomes a blight on the extended family's opportunity to earn a living into the future. It is their choice.

For the parents/children who subscribe to the collective-education model, then a high-tech, cost-effective solution, as outlined, would deliver education professionally & inexpensively.

SA is at a major cross-roads in many, many respects. Parents need to stop blaming the government for their difficulties. The present authorities are woefully low on mental horsepower. Their present efforts produce nothing but disaster. Time for parents to pull their children out of a mess & find alternative ways to provide a decent education for their children.

[Blurock]

I have to agree with Adrian. The rot in our education system is so deep that it is almost at the point of no return. Kids come out of even posh schools, unable to read or write properly. In certain areas anarchy rules and the schools are ruled by gangs and bullies. No wonder there are schools with a zero pass rate in matric!

What do you expect where you have uneducated teachers, sex for marks and headmasters running their own businesses during school hours?

Distance education via electronic means is great. I have also done such courses at a US university. We had a virtual classroom with a lecturer and "some classmates". Ons could also phone in or ask questions via e-mail. Some lectures were delivered via video tape, but I found those extremely boring and skipped most of them.

It would be a great idea to have a virtual classroom with a really good teacher for maths and science with the school teacher just facilitating and keeping order. The reality however is that the teacher will be absent or on strike half the time, the equipment will be stolen and the classroom burnt down. As for tablets, they will be stolen and sold for drugs within days.

Let's face it, we live in a 3rd world country, so we need to find a 3rd world solution. I am dreaming of the day that our kids will complete school as well rounded, educated and motivated young adults who are ready to take on the challenges of life. Sadly, I think this may be a pipe dream with the quality of government that we have now.

[adrianh]

desA - you live in a dream world...

I have two kids at school, my employees have kids at school, one white retarded kid, a little black girl and two coloured kids. Speak to real people about the realities of education where parents can't afford to buy food, where kids live in shacks, where gangs roam the streets and take pot shots at each other in amongst the houses in places like Mitchell's Plein (school is sometimes the safest place to be - that is when the gangs don't come in to shoot teenagers who owe them money)

Look, my girls have laptops, tablets, access to the internet and Kindles and so do their friends. I understand the value of technology and education and I spend endless hours with the girls helping them with math and science and stuff. But, I am also aware of the realities faced by the multitudes in this country and the general attitude towards government property and the property of others.

Face it, you live in a country where people are happy to run through the streets and loot from their own poor brothers, where people are happy to burn down libraries, where teachers are happy to strike and sit at home, where text books aren't delivered....

you're dreaming...

[desA]

desA - you live in a dream world...

...

you're dreaming...

Yes, indeed - unashamedly!

Martin Luther King - "I have a dream..." => President Obama

In order to change the world, people have to dream. These dreams catch on, are implemented & the world begins to change, for the better, one day at a time. The key ingredient is the WILL to change!

The key question remains : Do South Africans want to change the SA education system?

[adrianh]

Yes, indeed - unashamedly!

Martin Luther King - "I have a dream..." => President Obama

In order to change the world, people have to dream. These dreams catch on, are implemented & the world begins to change, for the better, one day at a time. The key ingredient is the WILL to change!

The key question remains : Do South Africans want to change the SA education system?

Fair enough....

The problem with the South African education system is that there are masses of people who have uneducated parents, those parents don't have work and those parents feel that the world owes them because "they won the struggle". So, the government decided that it is best to bring the level of education down to the lowest level so that those kids are able to become part of society. Now you and I both know that the standard of education, especially maths and science in the this country is very poor. The difficulty is that if one has a high standard then only 3% of the masses would pass. How do you educate a child that has no support structure so as to help him attain a high standard, his parents can't help him, his teachers are no better. I think that lowering the standards has serious negative side effects (obviously) but it also has positive side effects in that those kids are also able to attain a degree of dignity for having passed matric (yes I know it is really Std 6 but nonetheless it is a step towards building the system back up). It will take a couple of generations to get the education system right because to do so you have to have parents who understand the value of education (those parents are the kids studying today). The only sensible thing one can do is to take a long term view, a view that builds standards slowly from within the family rather than externally. Of course there will be kids that excel and those kids must be given the opportunity to further their education but on a proper academic level. One simply cannot give professional qualifications away because of the colour of a skin, if the person wants to be called a doctor then he should earn the qualification.

There is no easy solution, it is going to take a lot of time and effort to educate the parents....then you deal with the kids!

[tec0]

If you think that you are going to get anywhere by giving shack dwellers tablets then you are sadly mistaken. In an environment where kids stab each other and even the teachers, where they steal all the brass taps and break the toilets just for the hell of it, where they are too stupid to pick up the litter around the school let alone clean the bathrooms now and again....you are dreaming. You cannot apply 1st world solutions to 3rd world problems and then hope that they will manage the solution themselves. You must remember a couple of things, school text books are issued each year, why? math hasn't changed nor has science or geography. The reason the textbooks are changed is because it is a mechanism to make lots of money. If you think that the companies that print textbooks are going to stand for you doing away with textbooks and replacing them with PDFs on a tablet that could be copied so that nobody makes anymore money then you are also mistaken. We've been down this route in Namibia, I created such a device for my brother and his buddies and they demo'd it to the department of education, they thought it was really great but one of the teeny weeny little problems that they pointed out was that there are lots and lots of poor people who can barely afford a piece of chalk who are tought under a tree because there is no money for classrooms and to top it all off they don't have electricity for miles around.

The tablet idea is nothing new, very few schools use it, mainly upmarket private schools do. Even the upmarket expensive public schools don't because the parents are not keen on spending R800 on a subsidized tablet. My daughter is in grade 8 in a posh girls school. They don't get to take cell phones, tablets or laptops into class because they get stolen, dropped, kicked, stepped on etc.

Guys, you are barking up the wrong tree, you cannot solve education with electronics, people teach people, what needs to happen is that they need to spend lots of energy on educating the educators to make sure that those who teach know what they are doing. There is no value in putting a kid in front of a PC and saying to him:"learn math", what does the kid do when he doesn't understand something, what does he do if he doesn't speak the language properly, is ADHD, just likes to mess around etc...

What you are doing is called "cloud-storming" - it is simply pie in the sky that cannot even be applied properly to those who can afford it, let alone to the masses who would sell the tablet for R50 so as to buy a meal for the day!

This is a bit dehumanizing isn't it Adrian? If the device itself has no secondhand value there will be no reason to steal it. Secondly you have no idea what is happening in townships. It is a given that some places are bad to the bone but it is also true that people are planting there own food, and saved up money for a "charging station" where a solar panel is used to charge 12Volt car batteries that in tern charges there devices. They also purify there own water and the list goes on. Secondly They will spend R800 on a tablet because normal books cost round about R180 per subject I spend about R1k in handbooks for my studies. In total people spend about R6k on subjects per block.

Why do you always have to be like this?

[adrianh]

This is a bit dehumanizing isn't it Adrian? If the device itself has no secondhand value there will be no reason to steal it. Secondly you have no idea what is happening in townships. It is a given that some places are bad to the bone but it is also true that people are planting there own food, and saved up money for a "charging station" where a solar panel is used to charge 12Volt car batteries that in tern charges there devices. They also purify there own water and the list goes on. Secondly They will spend R800 on a tablet because normal books cost round about R180 per subject I spend about R1k in handbooks for my studies. In total people spend about R6k on subjects per block.

Why do you always have to be like this?

Of course people don't live in sqiatter camps, kids don't get shot in Mitchell's Plein, idiots don't run riot in Cape town, people don't burn down libraries in Limpopo, text books are delivered on time to all the schools, parents are all educated and able to help their kidswith math, what else did I forget...oh yes, the moom is made of cheese and Julius Malemacan do Calculus.

[sterne.law@gmail.com]

Given that there is a great idea based upon inherent problems and given that, correctly so, a massive stumbling block has been raised, perhaps one should look at the solutions to the new problem, which is valid and on point.
A modification
A concept of centralised classrooms using able teachers using a technological medium.
Still, a form of bricks and mortar schools, perhaps using existing facilities, church halls, municipal sports halls etc. Students still need to report to this structure. ( rural areas maybe the employment of a 'principle' who has the facilities and the children report to).
And the children still have old school books, alternatively an ebook reader (supplied or bought, situation dependant) with text books on them.

The original scenario presented was actually sorting out the errant teachers and poor teachers, it then ran away and got out of control as enthusiasm overtook reality. Perhaps consideration within the above terms of reference may 're channel this discussion.

On a related note, a proposal such as this could be tabled in front of government, and there is a strong basis, in law, which would almost force there hand to accede to it, provided a plausible plan is presented. It may even border along a concept of privatisation.

[tec0]

Of course people don't live in sqiatter camps, kids don't get shot in Mitchell's Plein, idiots don't run riot in Cape town, people don't burn down libraries in Limpopo, text books are delivered on time to all the schools, parents are all educated and able to help their kidswith math, what else did I forget...oh yes, the moom is made of cheese and Julius Malemacan do Calculus.

Well like I said before if you practice selective reading then so be it. You missed what I said some places are bad. The concept here is "change" obviously that will come with time as it must. The system as is doesn't work can't provide safety and then there is the question of accessibility.

When the child gets the tablet they are "enlisted in the schooling program" weekly progress can be monitored by "online tests" and assignments. This is only to monitor progress and not to award points. Only the final test counts and the child can decide when that is.

With proper web design this will be an easy enough task to provide e-books and study materials and private tutoring is also an option. What we don't need is another building full of criminals gangs and drugs.

This system if implemented can provide much more then what most schools can.

[adrianh]

You live in a dream world, posh private schools can't even get it right. If you think that the average kid is going to look after a tablet then you are mistaken, they can't even look after their pens, let alone their textbooks.

It is very simple, educate the parents to understand the value of allowing their kids to be educated. Educate the educators, a person who does not understand math cannot and should not teach math.

My youngest daughter is somewhat ADHD and she has difficulty concentrating for more than 5 minutes if she doesn't find the material engaging. If you think that she will spend more than 5 minutes trying to figure out how to do a sum on a PC when nobody is looking then you are also mistaken. Teachers need to engage kids, they need to be able to gauge whether the kids understand the work. They need to make allowances for the slow kids and also the fast learning kids. A clever kid will lose interest as quickly as a stupid kid will.

tec0 - you need to understand that pie in the sky is great but reality is somewhat different and a lot harsher. Love and attention doesn't cut it, getting off one's ass and putting in the hours is the only way to learn anything.