Focus 66 - Information & Communication Technology - Download the future
“According to the European Commission, the importance of ICT lies less in the technology itself than in its ability to create greater access to information and communication in underserved populations. Many countries around the world have established organisations for the promotion of ICTs, because it is feared that unless less technologically advanced areas have a chance to catch up, the increasing technological advances in developed nations will only serve to exacerbate the already-existing economic gap between technological “have” and “have not” areas.” This is the crux of why the Helen Suzman Foundation has chosen to look at the subject.
Focus 67 - State and Nation
This edition of Focus is devoted to exploring some of the issues which confront state and society in South Africa. It self-consciously looks forward to the State of the Nation Address by the President which will be delivered in February 2013. It also seeks to remind readers of Focus of the wider social context in which the drama of South African politics is played out.
Helen Suzman Memorial Lecture 2012
22 November - The 2012 Helen Suzman Memorial Lecture was delivered by Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the University of the Free State Prof Jonathan Jansen and was entitled "The Mathematics of Democracy."
Welcome to the First 2013 issue of Focus, devoted to education and organised along the themes of Overcoming and Innovation. This issue of Focus is an attempt to broaden and deepen the education debate, moving beyond our stagnant litany of educational woes. It includes personal perspectives, as well as expert opinions, because education should be understood as much through the lived experience of learners and families as through policies and theories. There is an emphasis on the Arts, an increasingly neglected weapon in our armoury against both ignorance and exclusion.
A good education is the only reliable way of escaping from poverty, but this is seldom available for South Africa’s poor. Most poor children attend schools where the quality of teaching and learning is extremely weak, even when compared to much poorer African countries. Those who do well in matric then face "financial constraints to further studies. Thus, almost two decades after the political transition, the largest population group, black Africans, is still poorly represented at university because of weak schools and the cost of university.
This article will explore an innovative way in which Visual Theatre can be used to overcome educational barriers. This is accomplished by establishing access to literacy and quality education for Deaf children. According to the Deaf Federation of South Africa, one out of three Deaf people are functionally illiterate. To put this overwhelming statistic into context, the average Deaf grade 12 learner has the reading comprehension of a hearing 8 year old, and by adulthood, these learners are unsuccessfully integrated into mainstream society as a result of their disempowering educational experiences.
This text explores the role of the arts and media as tools in articulating independent voices. Descriptive and interjected by anecdotes, it shares some of the methodologies employed at Keleketla! Library, an independent and interdisciplinary library and media arts project based at the historic Drill Hall in Johannesburg, South Africa.
'Now is truly the winter of our discontent!' These are the words that come to mind when one thinks about the English set work of one’s year. As it means hours and hours of awkward encounters with rather boring men in tights, monotonous thees and thous, convoluted stories about someone who killed someone’s something and now seeks revenge and has returned in 2013 through reincarnation as an English teacher because, yes, one has to read … Shakespeare!
My basic premise is that the struggle for democracy in South Africa is not over and that when it comes to education in particular, we need to adopt a radical set of ethical principles to change the system fundamentally.
According to an old African adage a child is raised by a community. When I was growing up this was how we lived, and was applied in all spheres of life in each society. Each adult was responsible for all the children around her, and even those she came across in life. Children’s upbringing was a collective project so much that in some areas children were named by neighbours. !eir progress throughout life was supported and nurtured by all. An African child was a special child.