Education Minister Angie Motshekga said yesterday that the Department has delivered 98% of textbooks to inland areas, ahead of schools opening today. Motshekga recently settled a case out of court with NGO Equal Education who got her to agree to establish a minimum standard for infrastructure in schools.
HSRC Press has published a number of titles that address the issues in the education system and other societal problems that children may face during their schooling years. The Low Achievement Trap looks at the differences between a Grade Six maths class in South Africa compared its equivalent in Botswana. Old Enough To Know is a study of sex education in South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania, while Books and Babies looks at the issues facing learners dealing with pregnancy and parenting while still in school. Academic Interaction with Social Partners and Community, Self and Identity examine higher education and the role of universities in social development and Realising the Dream looks at unlearning the “logic of race” in schools.
At least 98 percent of textbooks had been delivered to inland schools ahead of the first day of school on Wednesday, the basic education department said.
“We are ready for day one,” Minister Angie Motshekga said in a statement on Tuesday.
Academic Interaction with Social Partners : Investigating the contribution of universities to economic and social development by Glenda Kruss, Mariette Visser, Mogau Aphane, Genevieve Haupt Book homepage
EAN: 9780796923899 Find this book with BOOK Finder!
Community, Self and Identity: Educating South African university students for citizenship edited by Brenda Leibowitz, Leslie Swartz, Vivienne Bozalek, Ronelle Carolissen, Lindsey Nicholls, Poul Rohleder
EAN: 9780796923981 Find this book with BOOK Finder!
The Low Achievement Trap: Comparing Schools in Botswana and South Africa edited by Martin Carnoy, Linda Chisholm, Bagela Chilisa Book homepage
EAN: 9780796923684 Find this book with BOOK Finder!
Old Enough To Know: Consulting Children About Sex and AIDS Education in Africa by Colleen McLaughlin, Sharlene Swartz, Susan Kiragu, Shelina Walli, Mussa Mohamed Book homepage
EAN: 9780796923745 Find this book with BOOK Finder!
McLaughlin, Kiragu and Swartz were joined in conversation by Arvin Bhana, Ariane de Lannoy, Sana Mmolai, Duncan Scott and Leickness Simbayi. The HSRC has made a version of the presentation available online.
Old Enough To Know: Consulting Children About Sex and AIDS Education in Africa by Colleen McLaughlin, Sharlene Swartz, Susan Kiragu, Shelina Walli and Mussa Mohamed Book homepage
EAN: 9780796923745 Find this book with BOOK Finder!
The Aga Khan University recently hosted a workshop to mark the launch of Old Enough To Know: Consulting children about sex and AIDS education in Africa. Sameer Lakhani from Aga Khan University and Karl Gernetzky of Business Day reported on the event, where AIDS education amidst cultural, religious and moral restraints, was one of the issues discussed:
The Aga Khan University, Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED), East Africa held an event and workshop to launch the book “Old Enough To Know: Consulting children about sex and AIDS education in Africa, which is the culmination of a joint research project between the AKU-IED in Tanzania and the Commonwealth Education Centre, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, UK.
This book describes a compelling study concerning children’s knowledge about sex and particularly in context of HIV and AIDS. It was conducted with a sample of eight public secondary schools in three countries in sub-Saharan Africa – Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania. The book has been jointly written by Shelina Walli and Mussa Mohamed (Aga Khan University, Institute for Educational Development, Tanzania) and Colleen McLaughlin and Susan Kiragu (University of Cambridge).
PRIMARY school pupils were far more willing to talk about the risks and role of sex in their communities than adults realised, but teachers lacked sufficient preparation and confidence to deal with the issue, experts in education, children’s rights and HIV/AIDS said yesterday.
While sex education in schools is controversial, due to cultural, religious and moral restraints, many point to SA’s HIV/AIDS rate. Statistics such as the 24,4% pregnancy rate among girls in grades 8-11 shown by the 2008 South African National Youth at Risk Survey were a reason for schools to tackle the issue.
Old Enough To Know: Consulting Children About Sex and AIDS Education in Africa by Colleen McLaughlin, Sharlene Swartz, Susan Kiragu, Shelina Walli, Mussa Mohamed Book homepage
EAN: 9780796923745 Find this book with BOOK Finder!
This compelling study, comprising a sample of eight schools in three countries in sub-Saharan Africa – Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania, examines the sources, contents and processes of children´s community-based sexual knowledges and asks how these knowledges interact with AIDS education programmes in school.
Old Enough To Know showcases the possibilities of consulting pupils using engaging, interactive and visual methods including digital still photography, mini-video documentaries, as well as interviews and observations. These innovative methods allow children to speak freely and openly in contexts where talking about sex to adults is a cultural taboo.
The study also sheds fresh light on teachers´ fears and struggles with a lack of training and limited opportunities for reflection on practice. It engages in dialogue with conflicting voices of community stakeholders who are both aware of the dangers faced by children living in a world with AIDS and who are also afraid of the many cultural, religious and moral restraints to sex education in Africa.
About the authors
Colleen McLaughlin (UK), PhD, is Deputy Head of Faculty at the Faculty of Education University of Cambridge, where she is responsible for international initiatives. She is also a project leader in the Centre for Commonwealth Education. She has a lifelong interest in the psychosocial aspects of education and has worked on the personal and social aspects of education, including sex education, for the last thirty years. Other recent research has included research on of bullying and difference, and counselling interventions with children and young people. Her recent publications include The Supportive School: Wellbeing and the Young Adolescent (2011)(with J Gray, M Galton, B Clark, & J Symonds. Cambridge: Scholars Press); Networking Practitioner Research (2007) (C McLaughlin, K Black-Hawkins & D McIntyre. London: Routledge) and Researching Schools: Stories from a Schools–University Partnership for Educational Research (2006) (C McLaughlin, K Black-Hawkins, S Brindley, D McIntyre & K Taber, London: Routledge).
Sharlene Swartz (South Africa), PhD, is a sociologist and Research Director in the Human and Social Development research programme at the Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa. She is also a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Commonwealth Education, University of Cambridge, UK. She has undergraduate degrees in science (University of the Witwatersrand) and theology (University of Zululand), both in South Africa, and holds a masters degree from Harvard University and a PhD in the Sociology of Education from the University of Cambridge, UK. Her research interests focus on youth and poverty, social inequality, the sociology of morality and masculine moralities. She is the author of Teenage Tata (Cape Town, HSRC Press, 2009 with A Bhana), The moral ecology of South Africa’s township youth (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; Johannesburg: Wits Press, 2010) and Moral Education in sub-Saharan Africa: Culture, economics, conflict and AIDS (London: Routledge, 2011, co-edited with M Taylor).
Susan Kiragu (Kenya), PhD, is a social scientist, and a Research Associate at the Centre for Commonwealth Education, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, UK. She has undergraduate and masters’ degrees in education from Kenyan universities, and a masters degree and a PhD in education from the University of Cambridge. Her research interests are centred in Africa – especially on HIV/AIDS and sexuality education, and gender and education. She has published in journals such as Journal of Moral Education, Qualitative Research and Sex Education, in addition to a number of book chapters.
Shelina Walli (Tanzania) is assistant lecturer at Aga Khan University, Institute of Educational Development East Africa (AKU IED-EA), based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She has an undergraduate degree in Early Childhood Education and a Masters of Education (Teacher Education) from AKU IED-EA. Her master’s thesis considered the integration of HIV/AIDS education into the pre-school curriculum. She has a passion for early childhood and has been in the field of education in various capacities for 20 years.
Mussa Mohamed (Tanzania) is a science and health education facilitator at Aga Khan University, Institute of Educational Development (IED) East Africa, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He has an undergraduate degree in Science with Education from Dar es Salaam University, and holds a masters degree from Aga Khan University, IED, Pakistan. His research interests focus on improving the teaching and learning of HIV/AIDS and on promoting science literacy.
Book details
Old Enough To Know: Consulting Children About Sex and AIDS Education in Africa by Colleen McLaughlin, Sharlene Swartz, Susan Kiragu, Shelina Walli and Mussa Mohamed Book homepage
EAN: 9780796923745 Find this book with BOOK Finder!
Bray introduced the audience to the study of childhood and adolescence in the opening lecture, and concluded the series, together with Gooskens, in a lecture entitled “Schooling and identity”. UCT Open Content has made the presentations used by Bray, Gooskens and their colleagues available online:
Growing up in the new South Africa: Childhood and adolescence in post-apartheid Cape Town by Rachel Bray, Imke Gooskens, Sue Moses, Lauren Kahn and Jeremy Seekings Book homepage
EAN: 9780796923134 Find this book with BOOK Finder!
Sandile Memela Mamelang writes on Thought Leader that since the dawn of freedom and democracy, black youth growing up in the New South Africa have increasingly been educated “outside their families, communities and history”.
He predicts that black youth will be the first to turn their backs on the liberation movement and that this will happen in the next ten years. It could even happen during the forthcoming local government elections.
Mamelang attributes this to the fact that more and more black parents are enrolling their children in previous “white” schools.
There is reason to believe that we will see an increasing number of young people who not only abandon participating in revolutionary politics but just turn their back on voting, especially for the African National Congress.
Already, there are rumbles of discontent among the youth that the Independent Electoral Commission has not done enough to get them registered as voters or make them aware of the requirements for them to do their civic duties when it comes to the polls.
Also see what researchers Rachel Bray, Imke Gooskens, Sue Moses, Lauren Kahn and Jeremy Seekings discovered about the impact that growing up after 1994 had on South African youth in the book Growing Up in the New South Africa.
Book details
Growing up in the new South Africa: Childhood and adolescence in post-apartheid Cape Town by Rachel Bray, Imke Gooskens, Sue Moses, Lauren Kahn, Jeremy Seekings Book homepage
EAN: 9780796923134 Find this book with BOOK Finder!
Fadia Williams, a self-identified “Coloured” person, says that in post-apartheid South Africa, it is still difficult to deal with the attitudes of the older-generation. She says, “We are becoming more self-conscious of our blackness and our whiteness and our colored-ness.” She spoke to Youth Media International about her experience:
My dad is colored, but he looks white. His dad is Scottish and his mom is Egyptian; so under the apartheid rules, my dad was “Colored Other” because he had foreign parents. My mom, she looks very Indian, and she was plain “Colored” because she had South African colored parents. So when they walked down the street, he’d walk on one side of the street and she’d walk down the other side, because it was against the law for them to be together.
For other perspectives on what it’s like to grow up “Coloured” in the New SA, see this recent HSRC Press title:
Book details
Growing up in the new South Africa: Childhood and adolescence in post-apartheid Cape Town by Rachel Bray, Imke Gooskens, Sue Moses, Lauren Kahn, Jeremy Seekings Book homepage
EAN: 9780796923134 Find this book with BOOK Finder!
