Humanities and Education
STEM Education
The Academy of Science has pulled together a team of leading scholars from the science education community to deliberate on possible roles for the Academy that focus national attention on, for example, the bridge between schools and universities, the quality of teaching and learning in science education, science academic performance from an international comparative perspective, innovations in science education, teaching and learning in large science classrooms, and forging productive relationships between science teachers and science researchers. ASSAf, of course, is not an NGO that can deliver training services, and consists mainly of full-time academics and researchers with limited time. Yet there must be some things that an Academy of leading scholars can do, within its ambit, to bring attention to the crisis and add to the spectrum of solutions that begin to redress the challenges of science education in our national context.
Project Officer: Zuki Mpiyakhe, zuki@assaf.org.za.
PHD Study
This study seeks to explore the national capacity for the production of highly-trained, top quality postgraduate students.There is a broad consensus in the science community in South Africa that no enough high-quality PhDs are being produced in relation to the developmental needs of the country. For South Africa to be a serious competitor in the global knowledge economy, both the quality and quantity of PhDs needs to be expanded quite dramatically.
This study is supported by the National Research Foundation(NRF) and the Department of Science and Technology(DST)
Humanities
This project looks at the state of the Humanities in South Africa: Status, prospects and strategies.Everywhere, the Humanities is judged by many to be in “crisis.” The reasons for this, in South Africa, include the governmental emphasis on science and technology; the political emphasis on the economically-grounded idea of “developmentalism”; the shift of values among youth (and their parents) towards practical employment and financial gain; and the argument that the challenges faced by our society are so urgent and immediate that the reflective and critical modes of thinking favoured in the Humanities seem to be inaffordable luxuries. The social climate, moreover, is one which favours immediate action and practical answers rather than solutions arising from deep understandings of the human condition.
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