Saide Current Awareness
19 June 2023

 

Distance Education

 

Education: South Africa 

 

Language and Literacies

  • Only 32% of adults read books regularly, survey finds Source: Mail and Guardian Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga this week encouraged parents to get books for their children to stimulate a culture of reading from a young age, after a survey found only 32% of adults in South Africa read books regularly. Motshekga was speaking at the launch of the Nal’ibali Trust’s national reading barometer, which surveys the adult reading culture and the broader reading ecosystem in South Africa.
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  • Reading survey finds only 58% of adults have access to community libraries Source: News24 South Africans have unequal early learning outcomes and extremely poor school literacy. This was revealed on Tuesday when Nal'ibali Trust launched the first national reading barometer. The index draws on secondary data and it is to assess the health of the national reading ecosystem. More than 4 000 South African adults, aged 16 and above, participated in the national reading survey.
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  • Department 'hard at work' to ensure children can read with understanding Source: TimesLive Despite a dismal performance in an international assessment on reading, the department of basic education says it is hard at work to ensure children are able to read with comprehension. This emerged at a media briefing on Sunday where minister Angie Motshekga elaborated on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls), released last month, which placed South African grade 4 pupils last out of 57 countries in the global benchmark process.

 

Open Education and Open Educational Resources

 

Post Schooling

  • Higher Education for Good Source: OpenBook Publishers After decades of turbulence and acute crises in recent years, how can we build a better future for Higher Education? Thoughtfully edited by Laura Czerniewicz and Catherine Cronin, this rich and diverse collection by academics and professionals from across 17 countries and many disciplines offers a variety of answers to this question. It addresses the need to set new values for universities, trapped today in narratives dominated by financial incentives and performance indicators, and examines those “wicked” problems which need multiple solutions, resolutions, experiments, and imaginaries.
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  • Deep Tech Venture Builder ramps up commercialisation Source: University World News A ground-breaking initiative to create a venture builder model harnessing the best in technology at higher education institutions throughout South Africa is getting off the ground with building blocks patiently being put together through a participatory and collaborative approach.
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  • Linking Quality, Standards and Integrity Source:Handbook of Academic Integrity In this introductory chapter to the section about quality assurance and policies relating to academic integrity, it will be argued that a lax approach to integrity, in education or research, undermines the reliability of academic credentials or research findings. The implication from this premise is that standards will suffer if integrity is not taken seriously, resourced, and supported. Ideally, academic and research integrity should underpin quality assurance and academic standards.
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  • Reimagining sustainability – A key role for higher education Source: University World News Sustainable development has become a prominent focus of tertiary education in recent years – in some cases the orienting principle for institutions. Students are to be educated in sustainable development, academics are to research and publish on it and professional staff to ensure the institution itself is sustainable. Yet to what extent can tertiary education institutions (TEIs) meaningfully promote sustainable development, and align their diverse activities around it?
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  • ChatGPT forces SA varsities to rethink plagiarism policies Source: ItWeb South African universities are updating their plagiarism policies, or devising a set of guidelines, to maintain academic integrity, as more students use generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT.
    Since the emergence of ChatGPT in November, questions have been raised as to the impact of AI-assisted chatbots − which can generate high-level text on a wide range of topics − on the field of education.
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  • What if the university students of 2023 were the last students ever in South Africa? Source: IOL What if the 2023 class at the university was the final one to enrol in South Africa? What will our nation look like if funding runs out and there are no more university students after this year? In June, ahead of Youth Day on June 16, Feenix, a South African public benefit organisation that offers enrolled university students access to money, will begin its #WereITheLast2023 campaign.
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  • University Of Johannesburg Ranked No 1 In SA’s Accredited Research Outputs Source: India Education Diary In a historic first, the University of Johannesburg (UJ) is now the top producer of research outputs in South Africa. Twenty-six (26) universities in the country produce research that advances knowledge with the potential to benefit humanity.
    This is according to a report released on 19 May 2023 by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). In this latest report, in terms of refereed publications, UJ has achieved the #1 position in South Africa with 2753.4 research output units. The Report on the Evaluation of the 2021 Universities’ Research Output shows the number of units obtained from research publication outputs with a 2021 publication date, submitted and evaluated in 2022. This is a historic development for a comprehensive university formed out of a merger in 2005

 

Skills and Employment 

  • Tshimologong upskills youth in gaming, animation Source: ITWeb South African innovation hub, the Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct, is inviting youth to apply for learnerships, internships and entrepreneurial incubation skills development programmes in the local gaming and animation industries. According to the University of Witwatersrand-owned hub, specialised skills offered through the wide-ranging initiative include coding, programming, game development, UX and app development.
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  • Young people in Soweto are hustling for themselves rather than waiting for jobs promised by government  Source: Daily Maverick Young people from Soweto are no longer waiting for the government to spoon-feed them. They say it will take too long to get jobs as they get older and more hungry. Maverick Citizen went out to meet some of them to understand how they’re creating their own jobs.
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  • Learnerships may be part of the answer to youth unemployment, but they must be meaningful Source: Daily Maverick There’s an element of corporate fatigue about learnerships. They’ve become another requirement businesses are expected to fulfil, a B-BBEE scorecard item to check. Understanding the very real benefits has largely been replaced by bored and even malicious compliance.
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  • Mining’s inability to absorb youth raises questions about its sustainability Source: CreamerMedia High youth unemployment, combined with a national skills shortage and the fact that just over a third of the population is between 15 and 35 years old, means that South Africa – already contending with poor economic growth and civil unrest – is barrelling towards an untenable situation.
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  • Education, entrepreneurship crucial for youth economic emancipation Source: SA NEWS Government will leverage efforts it has made to improve education from the foundation phase and entrepreneurship skills to drive the much-needed youth economic development.
    This is according to Deputy President Paul Mashatile who led the National Youth Day commemoration in Mangaung, in the Free State on Friday. He said government has placed the education and training of youngsters at the top of its agenda.

 

Teaching and Learning- Local and Global

  • Enquiry-based learning in five steps Source: Times Higher Education Enquiry-based learning bridges the gap between theory and practice, enabling students to learn by doing. Nicky Goodall shares five tips for successfully bringing it into your teaching
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  •  Real-world education: embracing project-based learning Source: Times Higher Education Project-based learning benefits both healthcare students and host organisations during clinical placements. Roma Forbes and Michael Donovan outline the practicalities of supporting authentic workforce experience
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  • More play to engage students and deepen learning  Source: Times Higher Education Play is a powerful learning tool that boosts engagement, exploration and community. Here three lecturers outline some of the ways it can best be used

 

Technology Enhanced Learning

  • You wake up in a locked room… Using digital escape rooms to promote student engagement Source: Times Higher Education Game-based learning can unlock students’ motivation to learn and develop skills such as critical-thinking, teamwork and problem-solving, as Steven Montagu-Cairns explains
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  • Not replacing but enhancing: using ChatGPT for academic writing Source: Times Higher Education Generative AI and how it can be used for plagiarism has provoked fear in higher education. However, the technology can also improve and accelerate your writing process if it is applied in a constructive, positive manner
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  • Prompt engineering as academic skill: a model for effective ChatGPT interactions Source: Times Higher Education Gathering information from AI requires a new layer of search skills that includes constructing effective prompts and critically navigating and evaluating outputs
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  • Create critical awareness of AI apartheid – Experts Source: University World News There are growing concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) is amplifying existing inequalities and divisions in society, creating more polarisation. This sobering warning was issued by Dr Danielle Becker, a visual studies lecturer at Red & Yellow Creative School of Business, during a presentation at the third annual academic summit of the Honoris United Universities group, held in Cape Town recently.
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  • Evaluating the Social Impact of Generative AI Systems in Systems and Society Source: Cornell  University Generative AI systems across modalities, ranging from text, image, audio, and video, have broad social impacts, but there exists no official standard for means of evaluating those impacts and which impacts should be evaluated. We move toward a standard approach in evaluating a generative AI system for any modality, in two overarching categories: what is able to be evaluated in a base system that has no predetermined application and what is able to be evaluated in society. 
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  • Assigning AI: Seven Ways of Using AI in Class Source: SSRN This paper examines the transformative role of Large Language Models (LLMs) in education and their potential as learning tools, despite their inherent risks and limitations. The authors propose seven approaches for utilizing AI in classrooms: AI-tutor, AI-coach, AI-mentor, AI-teammate, AI-tool, AI-simulator, and AI-student, each with distinct pedagogical benefits and risks. 
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  • Using AI to Implement Effective Teaching Strategies in Classrooms: Five Strategies, Including Prompts Source: SSRN This paper provides guidance for using AI to quickly and easily implement evidence-based teaching strategies that instructors can integrate into their teaching. 

 

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