Education: South Africa 

  • Floods have a devastating effect on rural schooling Source: Mail & Guardian Heavy rains have recently affected parts of South Africa, but not enough attention has been paid to the effects of floods on public schools in the townships and rural areas of South Africa. 

 

  • Nutrition programme delivering the goods Source: Creamer Media's Engineering News South African learners and schools continue to benefit measurably, meaningfully as a result of holistic health and nutrition initiative the Health in Action (HIA) programme.

 

 

 

Language and Literacies

 

  • How To Read Books Effectively (7 Stoic Tips) Source: Youtube To be a great reader, it is not enough that you read, it’s how you read. It’s not about reading to impress people or for the mental gymnastics. It’s not about pouring inputs into your brain. It’s about getting better! It’s about filtering what gets into your brain. It’s about finding useful knowledge, knowledge you can use in your actual life. It’s about putting the information up to the test, examining it, seeing how it applies to your life, asking yourself how you might use it, what it’s prompting you to think.

 

 

Open Education and Open Educational Resources

  • Customizing OpenStax textbook content and aligned instructor resources Source: OpenStax A platform for instructors to customize content easily with a free OpenStax instructor account.THere are several tools available to empower users to remix and redistribute to fit their courses. Read more in the latest blog post:
    • Teaching Green Chemistry Through Student-Generated Open Educational Resources Source: Journal of College Science Teaching—March/April 2023 (Volume 52, Issue 4) This article describes the implementation of a student-generated open educational resource project into a majors’ organic chemistry laboratory. This scaffolded semester-long project was organized into six phases and designed to promote the goals of teaching students about both green chemistry and real-life applications of the reactions covered in the course while simultaneously creating open educational resources for future students. 
    • Basic Engineering Data Collection and Analysis Source: Iowa State University In Basic Engineering Data Collection and Analysis, Stephen B. Vardeman and J. Marcus Jobe stress the practical over the theoretical. Step by step, students get real engineering data and scenario examples along with chapter-long case studies that illustrate concepts in realistic, thoroughly detailed situations. This approach encourages students to work through the material by carrying out data collection and analysis projects from problem formulation through the preparation of professional technical reports—just as if they were on the job.

 

Post Schooling

  • Academic freedom in decline in 22 countries worldwide Source: University World News Over the past decade, academic freedom has declined in more than 22 countries representing more than half of the world’s population, four billion people, says the Academic Freedom Index: Update 2023 (AFI), a new study, produced by researchers at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Institute of Political Science (FAUIPS, Erlangen-Nuremberg), Germany, and the V-Dem Institute in Gothenburg, Sweden

 

  • Bold new charter aims for balance in North-South partnerships Source: University WorldNews Imagine a world in which African universities dominate scientific research focused on communities in North America or Europe. It sounds absurd and skewed, and yet a simple reversal of that scenario captures the present-day reality of much of the global research ecosystem. 
    A far-reaching new charter seeks to rebalance this ecosystem, and give African research its rightful position as an equal player in global scientific production.

 

  • Schneider Electric, UJ open 4IR experience room for engineering students Source: Creamer Media's Engineering News Energy management and automation multinational Schneider Electric and the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment have unveiled a Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) Experience Room on the university’s Auckland Park campus.

 

 


Skills and Employment 

 

 

  • It is dedicated to accelerating synergistic collaboration between industry and academia, says a statement.

 

  • SA’s ‘first’ national RPA qualification debuts Source: ITWEB The Media, Information and Communication Technologies Sector Education and Training Authority (MICT SETA) is working with automation software firm UiPath, to address the shortage of robotic process automation (RPA) skills in the country.

 

  • FNB targets 250 graduates with critical tech skills Source: ITWEB FNB will this year provide 250 youth with work experience in fields such as information technology, commerce, data and analytics, engineering, etc, in its annual graduate programme. In a statement, the big-four bank says youth employment and skills development continue to be big challenges in South Africa.

 

  • A game-changer for Occupational Qualifications Source: Mail & Guardian The gazetting of the Occupational Qualifications Sub-Framework (OQSF) Policy of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) on 29 October 2021 represented a huge step forward for occupational training in South Africa. Until this revised OQSF was gazetted, all Occupational Qualifications had been limited to being classified as Occupational Certificates. This article touches on some of the ways that the revised OQSF changes the game for Occupational Qualifications in South Africa.

 

  • Micro-credential Market to See Huge Growth by 2028 | Udemy, Kadenze, Coursera, Microsoft Source: DigitalNews Advance Market Analytics published a new research publication on “Global Micro-credential Market Insights, to 2028” with 232 pages and enriched with self-explained Tables and charts in presentable format. In the study, you will find new evolving Trends, Drivers, Restraints, Opportunities generated by targeting market-associated stakeholders. The growth of the Micro-credential market was mainly driven by the increasing R&D spending across the world.

 

Teaching and Learning- Local and Global

 

 

 

Technology Enhanced Learning

  • PedAIgogy – new era of knowledge and learning where AI changes everything Source: Donald Clark Plan B A blog post by Donald Clarke. He writes” This is another big bang, the difference being the dynamic creation of knowledge, in real time, in co-created dialogue. We are no longer using technology to simply find knowledge and learn. We have moved forward to find, create, change, organize, synthesize, even evaluate knowledge and learning with technology. This is a new form of pedagogy, I call ‘pedAIgogy’. We are co-creators, not just of text but in all media, multimedia creators, as well as learning and teaching in a far more complex relationship with technology. Also see  8 Learning Trends Now Shaping L&D Webinar Recording

 

 

  • GPT4 Capabilities and Effects on Education Source: Youtube GPT4 is here and is much more powerful than GPT3. This video explores some of its capabilities and focuses on how this will effect different aspects of education.