Saide Current Awareness
31 July 2023

 

Distance education 

 

 Education: South Africa 

  • Parents worry that learners’ misuse of electronic educational devices goes unchecked by schools Source: Mail and Guardian Parents want the Gauteng education department to create a system to monitor the content on the electronic devices 
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  • Delinquent Gauteng departments fail ‘disposable’ school Source: Mail and Guardian The Gauteng departments of education and of infrastructure development disposed of a major asset in 2000, including a functioning school, and have failed to rectify the situation for more than two decades. The land occupied by the school was sold for a mere R600 000 and the department is paying rent of about R185 000 a month, nearly a third of what the landowner paid for the total asset.
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  • Public protector probes student loan body tender awards Source:University World News The public protector is investigating the awarding of a contract to service providers by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) to make direct payments to students in universities and technical and vocational education and training colleges, writes Unathi Nkanjeni for TimesLIVE.
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  • Civic education course breaks new ground Source: Mail and Guardian The unique National HIGHER HEALTH Civic Education and Health Skills Programme was developed in South Africa by HIGHER HEALTH, an agency of the Department of Higher Education Training. The programme’s co-curriculum is designed to address the many personal and social challenges facing youth — and the world — today. Modules cover issues related to civic engagement; peer education; gender diversity and equality; mental health; disability; communicable diseases; alcohol dependence and substance abuse.
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  • E-learning: A transformative force in modern education Source: Mail and Guardian Dr Sandra Roberts  a Learning and Research Consultant who has worked extensively across the African continent., says that e-learning is an opportunity for quality education for all South Africans and outlines the factors that need to be considered when implementing this mode of learning.

 

Open Education and Open Educational Resources

  • How do we respond to generative AI in education? Open educational practices give us a framework for an ongoing process Source: Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching How should assessment practices change? Should we teach about generative AI or use it pedagogically? If so, how? Here, the authors propose that a set of open educational practices, inspired by both the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement and digital collaboration practices popularized in the pandemic, can help educators cope and perhaps thrive in an era of rapidly evolving AI.
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  • Openness in Education as a Praxis: From Individual Testimonials to Collective
    Voices     Source: Open Praxis ICDE "As manifested in our guiding question, the significance of Openness in Education and its immediate necessity form the heart of this collaborative editorial piece. This rather straightforward, yet nuanced query has sparked this collective endeavour by using individual testimonies, which may also be taken as living narratives, to reveal the value of Openness in Education as a praxis"

 

Post Schooling

  • University leaders declare their concern about rankings Source:University World News University leaders are concerned that “current global university rankings often result in an unhealthy use of competition that reproduces and reinforces social inequities and global science inequalities”.
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  • HE quality assurance systems need to be robust and flexible  Source:University World News A couple of weeks ago UNESCO convened the first session of the Intergovernmental Conference of States Parties to the Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications Concerning Higher Education (GRC).
    Adopted by the UNESCO General Conference in November 2019, and entered into force in March 2023, the GRC is the first United Nations treaty on higher education with a global scope.
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  • 54% of African student visa applications denied by the US Source: University World News African students who apply to study at universities and colleges in the United States experience the highest visa refusal rates of all international students applying to study in the US with more than half of all applicants rejected in 2022.
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  • Centre to build solutions for socio-environmental challenges Source:University World News The establishment of the Mandela Institute for Sustainable Futures (MISF) by Nelson Mandela University (NMU) in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), South Africa, is set to contribute towards building a strong pipeline of early-career researchers, critical in providing transformative interventions to the wave of planetary health challenges in South Africa and across the African region.
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  • Education roadshow to benefit NC matrics Source: DFA Matric pupils from under-serviced schools in the Northern Cape are set to benefit from Old Mutual’s nationwide roadshow, which seeks to engage, connect and supply critical resources in an effort to foster quality education.

 

Skills and Employment 

  • Youth employment initiative results in 85 placements Source: Engineering News Creamer Media The South African Property Owners Association (Sapoa) and the National Business Initiative (NBI) Youth Employment Initiative, which was launched earlier this year in a bid to help unemployed technical and vocational education and training (TVET) college learners develop skills within the installation, repair and maintenance (IRM) space in the property sector has resulted in the placement of 85 unemployed learners across Gauteng and Cape Town. 
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  •  Student-led innovations get Ford financial backing Source: ItWeb Four local student teams are the recipients of $5 000 (about R88 000) each in grant funding, to help them further implement their community-driven innovation projects.
    The funding will be provided through the Ford Motor Company Fund, after the teams were crowned project winners of the Ford College Community Challenge (Ford C3) programme.

 

Teaching and Learning- Local and Global

 

Technology Enhanced Learning

  • Technology in education:a tool on whose terms? Source: Unesco. The 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report  and 200 PEER country profiles on technology and education were launched on 26 July and is available with summary and short video included.  
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  • AI in Education Report from Warwick with Actionable Insights Source: LinkedIn An article which provides a  core summary from the report based on a series of panels across multiple topics and institutions.Includes highlights from the Actionable Insights for Educators as well as the Russel Group 5  principles for AI in education.
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  • Hidden Curriculum of Ed Tech Part 1  Source: Virtually Connecting & Equity Unbound Youtube channel A recording of the webinar on Values, Motivations, and Beliefs led by Danielle Dilkes
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  • An Essential Guide to AI for Educators  Source: AI for Education This FREE 2-hour, hands-on course is designed to help educators get started using ChatGPT to save time, engage students, and implement AI responsibly.
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  • Student-Led Conference Puts Focus on AI and Education On Aug. 5 and 6, student volunteers from the University of Illinois and Stanford University will present the AI x Education conference, an online event charting the adoption and utility of artificial intelligence in education, with a special emphasis on student perspectives. So far, more than 2,700 educators have registered to hear the perspective of over 60 student representatives and the insights of thought leaders in the field including Stephen Wolfram, Chris Dede and Kristen Dicerbo.
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  • Banning cellphones in classrooms is not a quick fix for student well-being Source: The Conversation The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has released a report highlighting the many challenges of the growing presence of technology in education. This report is groundbreaking in its call for corporate responsibility for education technology and in its recognition for the need for enhanced literacy curriculum.

 

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