Education receives the largest slice of the budget pie

The 2011 budget has revealed high levels of spending on improving the quality of education in South Africa

The government has set aside 21% of the 2011 budget for improving the quality of education in South Africa.

This was revealed during Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s budget speech in parliament on Wednesday.

The total amount of spending equates to R190bn in 2012/13 to R215bn in 2013/14.

The key amounts to be spent include R9.5 billion for the expansion of further education and

training colleges and skills development, as well as R8,3bn on schools infrastructure.

A further R24.3bn will be added to education and skills expenditure for the next three years.

Gordhan noted that this amounts to the "most important programme of investment in future growth and redistribution."

-BusinessDay 24 February 2011

There's no such thing as a bad child...

In 1968, Rosenthal & Jacobson published a study called Pygmalion in the classroom. The study was conducted at a lower middle income school, where the principal, Lenore Jacobson, and Robert Rosenthal, an educational psychologist, told teachers at the school, after conducting what purported to be an new form of IQ test, that several children had IQ results which showed they were gifted and capable of learning at a rapid rate.

The result of this was that the teachers taught those children differently. The children learned at a rapid rate. The teachers had higher expectations of those children. They gave them more input, and more chances.

As parents we have such power. Our children have belief and faith in us, however difficult and troublesome they sometimes appear to be. If we tell them they are clever, and are capable, and that we believe in them, then they will believe in themselves. If we tell them all the time how wicked and incapable they are, they will believe us.

Children are at school a lot of the day. We do not always know what they are being exposed to. We might have to deal with bullying, or with our child being a bully. If our children have strong belief in themselves, and a good, wide open world view, then what happens at school doesn’t have to be the end of the world for them. They can benefit from the good, and deal with the bad.

Teachers are human. Not all teachers are as fair or sensible as we would like them to be. When there is a dispute between your child, and a teacher, then the important thing for all parents to do is to support their child. Many schools value “discipline” – punctuality and tidiness- over learning. When a child is being picked on about something other than schoolwork, then don’t hesitate to confront the teacher. It is also the teachers duty to mark all work completed by a child, as not doing so is an infringement of the child’s constitutional rights to an education. So if a teacher is refusing to mark work because it is late, don’t hesitate to complain.

Most importantly, make sure you protect your child’s confidence from attack. It isn’t appropriate for teachers to tell children “you will never amount to anything” “you are useless”. These are forms of verbal abuse, and shouldn’t happen.

When in doubt, stay staunch with your children. Don’t worry if teachers aren’t your best friends. It is more important to be a good parent than to be big chums with a teacher. Often the teachers who seek to befriend parents do so to ensure that the parent will not give credit to a child complaints about being picked on. It’s not usual for children to lie unless they are always being told they are untruthful. Once someone is being blamed for doing something they did not do, there is no real value for them in not doing it. They are already guilty…why not commit the crime… So don’t criminalise your kids, and keep a sense of humour. A lot of the drama associated with schooling comes from the childish and pompous nature of the school system. The only reason to get upset with your children is if they aren’t doing their work. If you praise them they will like work. People like being praised, it makes them feel good, and makes them willing to work harder.

-Katy Alexander
READ Educational trust

Every child can succeed in the right environment

Large classes at mainstream schools can't provide enough assistance for children who may need more one on one attention.

"Some children need assistance to perform which they are not receiving in mainstream schools," says Delayne Large, a registered counselor and independent psychometrist.

Delayne, who runs Alberton Remedial Therapy Centre adds that she became increasingly frustrated as she could only provide assistance one hour a week when the children were brought for remedial therapy after school. "Children need to receive this assistance throughout the day. Furthermore, children who struggle within a mainstream environment have very little time left to just be children. They have a full school day, extra mural activities, homework and then still need to go for remedial therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, whatever the case may be. These expectations are hardly realistic.

"Many people have a misconception about remedial education, falsely believing that its merely lowering the standards and giving children less work. Remedial education, on the contrary, is aimed at equipping the children with the skills that are preventing them from performing within a mainstream environment," Delayne said.

"While most teachers make a gallant effort at doing just this, the task is near impossible as a result of the large numbers and copious amounts of paperwork and procedures teachers are required to follow.
"By drastically reducing the number of children in a class children are able to receive the individual attention they deserve."

Extract from Southern courier, 15 February 2011

Tiger mom gets a mixed response

On 30 January 2011 the Sunday times published an article on Amy Chua and her book "Battle hymn of the tiger mother"  This author has ignited controversy with her parenting memoir. According to extracts from her book, Chua believes an A-minus is a bad grade, children should not be congratulated in public. Chua has called her children names like "pathetic", "garbage" and "fat".

According to Judith Ancer, a psychologist based in Johannesburg, Chua may very well have a high IQ but would score really poorly on any measure of
emotional intelligence.

 In her book Chua distinguishes between the "Chinese parent" and the "Western parent" she mentions that the first believes that children must be denied play dates, sleepovers, acting in school plays or watching TV, and no grade less than an A must be tolerated. In the latter she says children are coddled into mediocrity, protected from hurt feelings and praised for trying hard when they get a D for maths. Where Western parents are pleased if their child practises the piano for an hour, Chua reckons that the Chinese mother thinks the first hour is easy, two and three being the tough ones.Much emphasis is placed on drilling and repetition until "perfection" is achieved.

This is the kind of material extracted from Chua's book that has resulted in mixed response. Below are some responses found in the January 30 issue of the Sunday Times.

Allow youngsters to make mistakes and learn to persevere despite their failures. Teach, guide, support, and role model appropriate behaviour, while letting them discover their uniqueness, and in doing so fill them with a special kind of love - feeling understood by their parents. - Claire Marketos 

Childhood is a basic right and no parent has the authority to take it away; they are indeed the "losers". - VM Lloyd, Germiston

We would do multiplication in our heads until we could sing the numbers in our dreams. But this was just the beginning.
At home we used to wake up as my father left for work at 4am and only went to sleep after him, usually not before 10pm.
But I am eternally grateful, for while training in exile with the liberation army, I was in cruise control while for others it was hell on earth. Viva the tiger mom. - Moss, by e-mail 

 Each child should be viewed as an individual and one realises that we cannot use the same formula for all our children and expect the same results.

For more on Tiger mom visit  www.timeslive.co.za