Gabi Witthaus's List: South Africa

Johan Hendriks

The two major civil service unions on strike against the South African government vow to intensify pressure in coming days, in a struggle pitting a million members of the middle and lower ranks of society against a confident government leadership fresh from hosting the World Cup.



Along with smaller public sector unions, teachers from the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) and nurses from the National Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) continued picketing at schools, clinics and hospitals, leading to widespread shutdowns starting on August 18. Skeleton teams of doctors and military personnel were compelled to send non-emergency cases home.

JOHANNESBURG. A knife-proof vest being marketed to British tourists as a must-have item at the 2010 World Cup has been slammed by the South African government, which says it is completely pointless as most tourists killed will either be shot or run over by taxis. However, the country has recommitted itself to killing as few tourists as possible.

It's a sunny weekday afternoon in Jo'burg, and I am lunching with friends at an outdoor restaurant. The joint we're in was hit by armed robbers earlier this week. The newspapers on the table are full of hair-raising tribulations – our former police chief on trial for bribery, commuter buses shot up by murderous taxi bosses who won't tolerate competition, and elders of the African National Congress declining to sign the charge sheet against Julius Malema, the controversial youth leader who made global headlines the other day by endorsing Robert Mugabe, the cocky little psychopath who ruined neighbouring Zimbabwe.

In 1994, at the dawn of a democratic era in South Africa our hopes were writ large in the narrative of liberty. There was a vision both of nationhood for all, and of substantial improvement in the quality of life for the victims of apartheid. Even those who had been part of the previous oppressive minority were buoyed by a sense of new-found pride in a nation that could hold its head high in the global community.

Learning Link International, the pioneers in Emotional Intelligence training, was established in 1996. Our vision is to substantially increase levels of Emotional Intelligence across Southern Africa and further afield, by empowering our clients.

We do this by delivering quality courses, workshops, self-study modules and e-learning modules which focus on a wide spectrum of adaptive and enabling skills within the workplace.

A team of industrial psychologists and human resource development specialists designed our comprehensive knowledge library. We enable organisations by selling material licenses and training their facilitators to deliver the programmes internally. We also facilitate our own programmes through our delivery arm called Learning Link Facilitators, which was established in 2003.

Learning Link accelerates productivity through:

* Advanced Emotional Intelligence Workshops: EQ for middle to top management
* Footprints: Life Skills for entry levels and supervisors
* Coaching & Mentoring: Workshops for aspirant coaches and mentors
* Mini Modules: Short workbooks to assist coaches, managers and mentors in handling specific topics
* Course Material Development: Customisation of existing and design of new programmes
* Development Event Execution: Running and administration of multi-media development interventions.

South African vice-chancellors warned the government to expect more students to drop out, following the shocking results of pilot national benchmark tests.

"The challenge faced by higher education institutions in relation to mathematics is clearly enormous," according to a draft report produced for the vice-chancellors' association Higher Education South Africa (HESA) by the National Benchmark Tests Project.

Salim Nakhjavani, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Inkundla yeHlabathi (or World Forum) is a simulation of the process of international law, piloted in 2007 and fully implemented in 2008, to support teaching and learning for law students at the University of Cape Town. Students play the role of legal advisers to 10 African States and engage with one another in small groups and plenary sessions - negotiating and drafting treaty provisions, applying legal rules to crisis and conflict situations on the continent and beyond, with the freedom to re-shape the existing law in anticipation of new developments. The simulation is brought to life through extensive use of the Sakai learning environment as well as classroom time. The simulation is complemented by an e-casebook of learning materials, delivered online through Wikis and offline by CD-ROM. Inkundla yeHlabathi was one of two winners of the 2008 Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award, sponsored by IBM - the only African entrant in this worldwide competition. This presentation explores some of the potentially innovative features of the course, and serves as a useful case study in the development and implementation of simulated worlds to support teaching and learning. Comments and advice would be most welcome, particularly on three imminent challenges identified in the presentation.

Sello Sekgwelea, UNISA, 2008
Unisa, the mega dedicated ODL institution in Southern Africa, its mandate is to empower and afford the employed, unemployed and less privileged learners the essential skills they wish to possess in their lifelong learning careers. Lately, Unisa experiences great amount of pressure – with delivery, client satisfaction and global competition as the main questions to answer following its recent merger. In its quest for qualitative educational delivery, new Unisa sees its ICT models (myUnisa & DVC), as its vital flexible tools for attainment of blended learning. Therefore it is the purpose of this research to establish to what extent has new Unisa achieved its targets as flexible delivery institution through use of its models. Does the application of ICTs facilitate and enhance learning at Unisa in line with teaching and learning, as intended? If not the case, what could be the problems and their solutions.

Maggie Verster
The introduction of Mathematical Literacy (ML) as a compulsory subject for all learners in the South African Further Education and Training (FET) band who do not take Mathematics, created several challenges for teachers of this new subject. ML teachers struggle with a variety of issues ranging from lack of adequate training, diverse textbook interpretations, differing philosophical views on the importance of context versus content, negative parent and learner perceptions, assessment, diverse multilingual and multicultural settings and a lack of resources, to name but a few. This paper will give a short background of some of the issues, as well as report on the difficult journey through technology in the quest to establish an online ecology of learning for mathematical literacy teachers.