South Africa’s Department of Basic Education recently released the country’s National Senior Certificate results for the class of 2019. These are commonly known as the “matric results” and they determine school-leavers’ admission and placement into tertiary level study. About 81.3% of those who wrote the matriculation exams passed. There has been much well-deserved celebration of this […] … learn more→
Author Archives: Kevin
Why South Africa’s declining maths performance is a worry
Tracking the path to research claims
All researchers make claims about their work. Remember the phrase staking a claim? That’s what we are actually doing when we claim something. We are metaphorically placing a marker in a field that we are prepared to stand on, stand for – and defend. We plant that marker at the end of the account of our research. We’re here, […] … learn more→
Neuroscience shows that the lyrics come in better with games than with blood
A girl opens her book for the first time. Look at some mysterious signs. His teacher is drawing them very large on the board and says: “It’s the letter A!” The exciting adventure (or hard work) of learning to read has just begun. It all depends on an astonished brain and its curious mind. Astonishment and curiosity push the […] … learn more→
Educational innovation: a website to progress in the chemistry lab
Can we train in experimental work in chemistry by sitting in front of a computer screen rather than in front of a laboratory bench? At first glance, the idea may surprise. “I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand,” said Confucius. If we refer to this famous maxim, manipulating a […] … learn more→
For linguists, it was the decade of the pronoun
On Jan. 3, the American Dialect Society held its 30th annual “Word of the Year” vote, which this year also included a vote for “Word of the Decade.” It was the year – and the decade – of the pronoun. In a nod to shifting attitudes about gender identities that are nonbinary – meaning they don’t neatly […] … learn more→
College entrance exams are RACIST. No kidding.
The edu-fascists running so many of our schools are predictable. The educationists want growth at all costs, while the Progressives want to advance their destructive ideology at all costs. Entrance exams, what used to be a gatekeeper for getting in to higher education, have long been abandoned at many of our open admissions state schools. […] … learn more→
Do androids dream of big data domination?
The incredible exponential growth in the volume of research data shows no signs of slowing down. Take the databases used by the European Bioinformatics Institute, headquartered in Cambridge, which continue to double in size every one to two years. And, thanks to powerful digital processors, advances in materials science and innovations around data transfer, the […] … learn more→
Humanities PhD grads working in non-academic jobs could shake up university culture
PhD graduates in the humanities need to cultivate more varied career paths. Canadian universities need to reform the culture of the humanities so that careers outside the university are seen to be just as valuable as permanent, tenure-track professorships. Changes like these will be good for the graduates, the universities and for Canadian society itself. […] … learn more→
Why media education in schools needs to be about much more than ‘fake news’
The 2019 general election is already being remembered as the one where misinformation went mainstream. It was, of course, already on the political agenda after the 2016 referendum and US election, with growing numbers of academics and parliament sounding the alarm over foreign actors using so-called “fake news” to disrupt the democratic processes. But what was seen over the election […] … learn more→
Teaching retreats: an older system than we think
Teachers are among the professions peak in the current protest against pension reform. Will the movement gain momentum ? The demonstrations of the coming days will tell. The fact remains that teacher mobilization falls within a specific historical framework. Their pension scheme does not date from the Liberation, like the general scheme, but from the two Empires. Can such an old system […] … learn more→
