UCT Online High School ensures that my child has access to top-quality educators, who are responsive and supportive whenever they are needed. As a parent of a learner at UCT Online High School in South Africa, we naturally approached this new mode of learning with caution. At the time of investigating high school options for […]

Any parent who has watched a child learning to read knows that it is a journey. Various skills and processes must come together and build “brick by brick” before a child can read a text and answer questions about it. A child needs at least two kinds of skills before they can comprehend what they’re […]

Violent protests erupted at the University of Fort Hare, resulting in the arrest of 12 students for property damage and burglary. On Sunday, the eve of exams, campus protests erupted at the University of Fort Hare in Alice, Eastern Cape. A dozen students were arrested for malicious damage to property and burglary business. READ: Known drug […]

Almost 30 years after corporal punishment has been banned in the country, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) has revealed that three out of ten households believe that it is okay to physically punish children if they talk back or argue with their parents. These are some of the stats the department published as the country […]

Matric 2023: Is your son or daughter doing their final year in high school? Here’s how you can show your support. For many school pupils, the matric year is one of the most important of all. This is because this year usually determines the next few years of your life as you decide on where […]

To some of his former students, Professor Barry Dwolatzky was the “Grand Geek” – a name of which he was very proud. But Barry, who passed away in Johannesburg, South Africa on 16 May 2023, was much more than a computer geek. He was also a leader and a visionary in the field of software […]

As the unemployment rate continues to rise in South Africa, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Here are some in demand job skills. According to jobs portal CareerJunction’s employment insights report, here are the job skills that are most in demand in South Africa right now. ALSO READ: South Africa will soon ban the […]

Nelson Mandela’s words continue to inspire and guide us, reminding us of the power of unity, forgiveness, and the pursuit of justice. If you happened to be putting together a short list of leaders who have had the greatest impact on the world, then Nelson Mandela would surely be at or near the top. As […]

More than 80% of South Africa’s grade 4 pupils – who are on average nine or 10 years old – cannot read for meaning. That means they can’t answer basic questions about or draw inferences from a text they’re reading. This worrying statistic emerged from the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), which […]

South Africa has made remarkable contributions to the world of science and innovation. From groundbreaking medical advancements to everyday household inventions, South African inventors have left their mark on the global stage. Here are seven South African scientific inventions that you probably didn’t know about. CAT SCAN In 1972, physicists Allan Cormack and Godfrey Hounsfield […]

More than 200 schoolchildren in Limpopo have been trained to capture precious data about water quality from boreholes and rivers near their schools in a project linked to the United Nations and run by the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Citizen scientists trained through a University of the Western Cape project are helping to […]

Sign language is on its way to becoming the 12th official language in South Africa after parliament recently agreed to amend the constitution to this end. The move will bring to fruition three decades of a struggle to empower the country’s deaf community. An official language has legal status in a state and serves as […]

In Parliament on Tuesday, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) blamed poor literacy rates and the failure of its National Reading Plan (implemented in 2019) on the Covid pandemic. Briefing Parliament on Tuesday, the Department of Basic Education blamed poor literacy rates on the Covid pandemic. Last week the Progress on International Reading Literacy Study […]

Natural landscapes are continually transformed to make room for agricultural and urban developments – often at the expense of important habitats and species. That’s why, to avoid unnecessary species extinctions, it’s crucial to know which habitats to protect. In a recent paper we studied how changes to the landscape affected butterflies in a grassland area […]

Joseph Saunders from Wentworth was one of 72 South Durban residents to be capped at the most recent Engen Community Computer School graduation ceremony held in early May. The school has been transforming lives in South Durban for 14 years by offering unemployed residents free introductory-level computer skills training. To date, the school has capped […]

South Africans can take several measures to minimize the amount of spam calls and unsolicited marketing they are regularly bombarded with. ALSO READ: WhatsApp adds cool new feature: Chat Lock SPAM CALLS IN SOUTH AFRICA In 2021, Truecaller’s Global Spam & Scam Report found that South Africa had the 9th-highest rate of spam calls in the world. […]

The South African Local Government Association (SALGA) has taken public participation to another level by publishing a children’s book aimed at encouraging children interest in local government children’s book. ALSO READ: What are the Characteristics of Werewolf Books？ The book titled: My Local Government, was recently launched at the sixth Annual SALGA National Communicators’ Forum in […]

Kunyashe is a Grade 1 pupil in Cape Town, South Africa. She’s very focused on her schoolwork. She shares a tiny one-roomed shack, hardly bigger than a double bed, with her mother and four siblings. Kunyashe receives a meal at school – her teacher once saw the little girl spooning some of this meal into […]

The Chairperson of the University of Cape Town’s council, Babalwa Ngyonyama has resigned, with immediate effect. This follows a recommendation from a high-powered panel, established to investigate governance at UCT, in an interim report, that she be immediately removed. The panel consists of Judge Lex Mpati (chair), Judge Azhar Cachalia, Dr Bernadette Johnson and Dr […]

Reading literacy has raised concern among education stakeholders in the country. Kunyashe is a Grade 1 pupil in Cape Town, South Africa. Reading literacy has raised concern among education stakeholders in the country. Kunyashe is a Grade 1 pupil in Cape Town, South Africa. She’s very focused on her schoolwork. She shares a tiny one-roomed […]

Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) students are living in uncertainty about their future following an eviction order. STUDENTS EVICTED FROM CAMPUS After tumultuous protesters damaged buildings and vehicles, the school forced students to leave campus. However, some don’t think this is a good alternative, while others worry about their academic future. The institution sponsored 52 buses […]

Rock deposits in a cave system inhabited by early human ancestors in South Africa may be almost 2 million years younger than previously thought, a new study has found, which may cast doubt over whether humankind may have originated in the country. NEW READ | [WATCH] – Huge wave hits a boat According to Bloomberg, the study, which used sediment analysis, […]

According to the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS 2021), a staggering 81 percent of the country’s grade 4’s lack the ability to read for meaning in any of the official languages. 12 426 grade 4’s were tested and compared to other learners in 42 different countries. South Africa did not fair very […]

Talking to your baby or toddler shapes the structure of their brain, my colleagues and I have discovered. For the study, which is published in The Journal of Neuroscience, we enrolled 163 children at either six months of age or 30 months of age. The children wore a small audio recorder in a specially made vest […]

An international literacy study has confirmed that 81% of South Africa’s grade 4 children could not read for meaning in any language in 2021, almost exactly the same proportion as in 2011. This means that a decade of slow progress in reading has been wiped out. 81% of grade 4 children in South African could […]