Monthly Archives: August 2010
" alt="Poor communities turn to private education" />Poor communities turn to private education
31 August 2010
It is clear that income or lack thereof is no indicator of demand for quality education.
Jane Roach is a CSI specialist in education at Tshikululu Social Investments.
In a month where many learners were not taught, raising the spectre of bad matric results once again, the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) released a study investigating the local occurrence and impact of the growth of low-fee paying private schools, an increasing international trend.
Workbooks no better than textbooks
The workbooks introduced in primary schools do not work better than traditional textbooks, a study found.
“œThe study suggests that more research is required before more workbooks are introduced into the national education system as these workbooks do not necessarily improve learner performance,” said Brahm Fleisch, professor of education policy from the University of the Witwatersrand school of education, and one of the lead researchers of the study.
Fleisch said the study suggested more research was needed before substantial public resources were committed to the printing and distribution of new workbooks to schools.
Read the full article at TimesLive and share your views in our Comments section below.
South African experts develop cell technology
Scientists in South Africa have developed a unique system to culture cells that could have an impact in the development of more effective medications and technologies.
“With the development of drugs you need to replicate the body’s system with cell cultures. The 2D system has limitations because the body is a 3D structure,” CSIR researcher Avashnee Chetty told News24.
She said that the closer a cell culture methodology was able to replicate the body system, its accuracy would result in more effective drugs to tackle disease.
She said that the process has been challenging, and they face a battle as a patent for the technology exists.
Chetty said that the methodology would be an advantage to new areas of research.
“Growing stem cells is a future possibility with this process, because it allows the mass growth of cells.”
Read the full article at News24 and share your views in our Comments section below.
Join The Black Tie Ensemble at the Capital Arts Festival
5 September 2010 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm The Black Tie Ensemble (BTE) in collaboration with The Capital Arts Festival present One Voice, a Sunday evening concert featuring members of The Black Tie Ensemble, performing not their usual repertoire, but showcasing their versatility in celebration of Africa.
For this concert, The Black Tie Ensemble will celebrate their musical diversity through styles and genres – from Opera to African contemporary melodies in a vibrant and energetic musical tribute. The programme will include popular songs from artists such as Vicky Sampson, Toto, Elton John, Miriam Makeba and Koos du Plessis. This will be the first time that patrons will be treated to the “œlighter side” of The Black Tie Ensemble and the members will be supported by the dancers from the Monnyth Dance Company.
Climate change policy ignores women farmers
27 August 2010
Research has shown that women are more likely to feel the effects of climate change because they have less access to resources. Changing weather patterns increase poor women’s work burden on gathering water and firewood. Girls may be forced to forgo school in order to contribute to the increased household work.
Where traditional land tenure is practiced, women may lose land normally reserved for growing crops for household consumption to give way for commercial crops.
The South African government, through its Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), is in the process of developing a national climate-change policy. Consultations with a few environmental experts and civil society organisations took place in May.
The content of the draft document remains confidential, but according to gender experts, who have been provided with a draft of the policy, it does not once mention the words “women” or gender”, despite the fact that most small-scale farmers are women and women are the most vulnerable to climate change and disaster.
“An effective climate-change policy must begin and end with people, but this document ignores that,” says Dorah Lebelo, coordinator of advocacy group Gender CC – Women for Climate Justice.
Read the full article at Mail & Guardian and share your views in our Comments section below.
Strike must not disrupt drug supply to HIV, TB and other chronic patients says SANAC
The South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) appealed to health workers today to make sure that the strike did not interrupt the flow of life-saving antiretrovirals and TB drugs to patients needing them, and to ensure that diabetic, epileptic and blood pressure patients could also get their medications.
More than a million South Africans are on ARVS and disrupting their treatment could jeopardise their health and increase the risk of drug resistance.
“œA failure to ensure an uninterrupted flow of medication”¦will be seen for years to come and could adversely affect thousands of people,” warned SANAC deputy chairperson Mark Heywood.
Patients struggling to get their chronic medicines during the public sector strike can contact the SA National AIDS Council Nerve Centre for assistance at (012) 395 9078/9, (012) 395 9081/7/8/9 or (012) 395 9090 or e-mail: sanacnervecentre@gmail.com.
South Africa’s children are in danger
24 August 2010
This is an extract from an article written by Leonard Saul, the chief executive of the South African Congress for Early Childhood Development, for the Mail & Guardian, published online on 24 August 2010.
Early childhood development (ECD) is the term used by the South African government to encompass all services provided to children from birth to nine years old.
Children of this age group are provided for in many different settings, from playgroup to workplace, nursery to public school, and at home- and community-based sites. The settings vary but children have in common a need to learn. During that period they are at the most impressionable stage of their development and what they learn will be with them for the rest of their lives.
Pan-African Early Childhood Development Conference
27 September 2010 to 29 September 2010 The Centre for Early Childhood Development, in association with the Chaeli Campaign and the HCI Foundation, is hosting an Early Childhood Development Conference between 27 and 29 September 2010 in Cape Town, South Africa.
Quality early childhood development programmes are a means of eradicating poverty. In order to be able to offer quality ECD programmes, it is essential that ECD stakeholders, including staff from ECD non-profit organisations (NPOs), government officials, donors as well as civil society members involved in ECD are properly informed. By providing ECD stakeholders with information on best practice in early childhood development we can improve the quality and quantity of ECD programmes and education for young children in Africa.
Communities debate HIV microbicide results
The recent release of positive results from a microbicide trial in South Africa have kick-started discussions between scientists, activists and community workers about the quickest and most responsible way of getting a product into women’s hands.
The trial by the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) found that a vaginal gel containing tenofovir, an antiretroviral (ARV) drug, was 39 percent effective at reducing women’s risk of contracting HIV during sex.
In other parts of the world, such results might not be cause for celebration, but in South Africa, and particularly in hard-hit KwaZulu Natal province where the trial was conducted, even such partial effectiveness could prevent 1.3 million new HIV infections over the next two decades and avert over 800,000 deaths, according to mathematical modelling.
Innovative water purifier available soon
17 August 2010
A tea bag-sized filter that cleans highly polluted water and costs about three cents per litre to use could be available to the public in approximately six weeks, the University of Stellenbosch said on Monday.
Professor Eugene Cloete, the dean of the faculty of science at the university, said the filter could help meet the needs of people who lived in remote areas or whose regular water supply was not being treated to potable standards.
“The lack of availability of adequate, safe and affordable water supplies impacts severely on vulnerable groups such as the poor, the elderly, HIV/Aids patients and children,” he said.
“More than 90% of all cholera cases are reported in Africa, and 300 million people on our continent do not have access to safe drinking water. Clearly, something has to be done about this,” he said.
The filters are made with the same materials as rooibos tea bags, and are disposable, portable, easy to use and environmentally friendly.
Read the full article at News 24 and share your views in our Comments section below.
