{"id":7525,"date":"2013-07-22T07:54:38","date_gmt":"2013-07-22T07:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=7525"},"modified":"2013-07-22T07:55:45","modified_gmt":"2013-07-22T07:55:45","slug":"science-will-solve-apartheid-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=7525","title":{"rendered":"‘Science will solve apartheid problems’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Confused<\/a>
Confused deputy-president<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Problems inherited from the apartheid era can be solved through research, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said – without irony – on Saturday, as South Africa struggles with ever worsening maths en science results since 1994.<\/p>\n

South Africa has hit rock bottom in an international measure of the quality of maths and science education recently.<\/p>\n

Concern is mounting whether the education system is producing a sufficient number of graduates in the hard sciences to support South Africa\u2019s growth and development.<\/p>\n

The World Economic Forum\u2019s annual report on financial development, released in 2012, placed South Africa last in a ranking of 62 countries in the quality of maths and science education.<\/p>\n

The 2011 census results, released on Tuesday, showed that\u00a0 a decade ago mostly white 2.7% of men and 2% of women who had tertiary qualifications in South Africa had qualifications in the fields of natural, physical and mathematical sciences. By 2011, this had declined to 2% of men and 1.8% of women, due to racial discrimination against whites.<\/p>\n

\u201cInevitably, most if not all the historically inherited challenges constituting a dead weight on our development ambitions can only be addressed through the research agenda of our national research institutes,\u201d Motlanthe told a summit on science and technology in Polokwane, Limpopo.<\/p>\n

Motlanthe said national research institutes had the task to remain relevant to the developmental agenda through the use of science, technology and innovation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other words harnessing the force of science and technology to meet our developmental needs is among the surest ways out of the current quagmire of under-development,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Motlanthe said through the National Development Plan, government laid out the parameters within which each social partner could make a contribution towards the achievement of the country\u2019s shared vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis shared vision entails the reduction of poverty, stimulating economic growth, effecting economic transformation and creating employment.\u201d\u00a0 He said South Africa needed to do more in mobilising resources for the task of producing quality education for both teachers and learners alike.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly a sound and quality education system with strong emphasis on mathematics and science can serve as a reliable feeder for tertiary institutions…,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Motlanthe said research projects were carried out disparately without knowledge sharing and co-ordination to avoid duplication.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur national research efforts lack a central framework or institute to define and identify the most immediate projects, resulting in duplication, wastage and inefficient use of funding.\u201d\u00a0 The lack of collaboration robbed the country of the benefits which would accrue from research.<\/p>\n

Research institutes could commission a study of the systemic failure in the governance system and how best could government address its problems, he said.<\/p>\n

Motlanthe said under-utilisation of existing research institutes by government often led to wasteful expenditure in that each government department commissioned research in common areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI submit that the benefits of science, technology and innovation are not only potentially immense for us but also, and more crucially, constitute the pre-conditions for South Africa\u2019s development.\u201d – SAPA\/praag<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Problems inherited from the apartheid era can be solved through research, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said – without irony – on Saturday, as South Africa struggles with ever worsening maths en science results since 1994. South Africa has hit rock bottom in an international measure of the quality of maths and science education recently. Concern … Continue reading “‘Science will solve apartheid problems’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[164,92,1785,12255,12250],"class_list":["post-7525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-apartheid","tag-education","tag-maths","tag-science","tag-south-africa"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/motlanthe2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7525"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7532,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7525\/revisions\/7532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}