Aggrey Klaaste Maths, Science and Technology Educator of the Year Awards,
Gallagher Estates, Midrand
22 March 2007
Nkhetheleng Vokwana, CEO, Telkom Foundation
Victor Mecoamere, Special Projects Editor, the Sowetan
It is a privilege to be here this evening. I am a patron of the awards. I am
a patron of the awards because I held the late Aggrey Klaaste in great respect
as a person and as a leader. We do not have ancient mathematical geniuses like
Pythagoras or Ramanujam or Aryabhatta to revere and to inspire us and so we
have to create new traditions around contemporary geniuses.
Not of course that Aggrey Klaaste was a mathematical genius, but he was a
genius in another field. He was a genius in nation building. His initiative in
nation building, started well before 1994, set an example to all of us to how
to work together for social justice and for the benefit of all. One of the ways
in which he did this was to single out and reward those people who rose above
their circumstances in search of excellence.
I am also a patron of the awards because I believe our maths, science and
technology teachers need special recognition and support. Tonight, as has been
done over the past eight years, we recognise teachers who have inspired their
pupils in maths, science and technology. Maths, science, and technology are now
more important than they have been at any time in recorded history. Their
importance is recognised in Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South
Africa (AsgiSA), our growth and development strategy.
We need maths, science and technology skills to reach our growth targets. We
have a considerable amount of catching up to do in order to compete globally. I
quote from the AsgiSA concept document: "Those parts of the legacy of apartheid
most difficult to unwind are the deliberately inferior system of education and
the irrational patterns of population settlement." We have come a long way
along the road to remedying the damage that apartheid inflicted on our
education system, but we have a long way to go. I quote again, "In a period of
growth it is evident that we lack sufficient skilled professionals, managers
and artisans, and that the uneven quality of education remains a contributory
factor."
Most of the children you teach will, after a long and productive life in
which their employment opportunities will change often and radically, retire in
around the around the year 2050 or 2060. None of us can know what the
employment environment will look like in the middle of the twentieth-first
century, but one thing is certain. It will be very different to now. Just think
there has been more technological change in the last ten years than there has
been in the last one hundred. One hundred years ago it was possible to teach a
child the basic skills that that child could use for the rest of his or her
life. That is no longer possible. We are educating our children for a future
that will be vastly different to now.
How can we anticipate the sorts of skills that they will need? We know
already that they will have to continuously upgrade their skills and even learn
new skills through lifelong learning. We know that the internet has created a
new platform for global communication and that it has also facilitated a new
way of doing business globally. We know that any business process that can be
automated, digitised or outsourced, will be automated, digitised, or
outsourced. We can see it happening as we speak, as companies look for new ways
of producing products and making services available throughout the world.
How do we teach our children the skills that will not be outsourced to
foreigners in another country where that work can be done cheaper, or automated
or digitised? Critically we have to teach children how "to learn how to learn."
That is the essential skill that our new curriculum has been designed to
provide. Our children have "to learn how to learn" and the remarkable teachers
in this room this evening have mastered that skill. More information is now
easily available to all than ever before, out there on the magnificent global
platform of the net and the web. Our children have to learn how to use that
information so that they can avoid being made redundant. But when they are made
redundant, when jobs are lost to technological progress, when new business
processes automate their jobs, then we have prepared them "to learn how to
learn" so that that they are able to learn new skills � to up skill, to
reskill, and so to earn a living for themselves.
We cannot know what the work environment will look like in 2050, but we can
teach our children "to learn how to learn" now. And our children can rest
assured that those who master maths, science and technological skills will be
best placed to learn new skills. Let me give you a local example � since we do
not have Pythagoras or Aryabhatta to look up to of how maths allows our
children to succeed in a global, out-sourced, off-shored world.
There is an online marketing company, Incubeta, based in Cape Town, which is
among the top five search engine marketers in the world. It has made a niche
for itself by using the platform that Google, the fastest growing company of
all time, has created. Google, the internet search engine, derives its income
from auctioning keywords for searches, so that companies can target their
products to whatever individuals are searching for on the web. IncuBeta bids on
millions of different keyword combinations, to which it then links targeted
advertisements for its clients. The company currently places over 50 million
targeted adverts a month.
The South African who founded this company is a mathematical genius who did
not finish school with any distinctions but who did win the regional maths
Olympiad in grade 11 and was the regional chess champion in grade 12. IncuBeta
founder Vinny Lingham was named Africa's top young Information Communications
Technology (ICT) entrepreneur at the 2006 African ICT Achievers Awards. His
company is off-shore, in a way that we can expect many of our innovative
companies to be in the future. It is based here, but it earns the majority of
its income from abroad.
Our school strategy for improving maths, science and technology is based on
the following three strands. First, we support focus schools that devise
programmes to help improve modest pass rates. There are around 400 Dinaledi
schools in the country dedicated maths and science schools. Second, we aim to
ensure that each of our 6 000 high schools has qualified maths and science
teachers.
We aim to retain competent teachers and to encourage new teachers through a
programme of incentives that includes rewards and bursaries � our bursary
programme has already proved to be a resounding success. Third, we aim to
identify learners with potential at an early age and to provide them whatever
assistance is necessary to bring out the best in them. In closing, I have noted
with keen interest that one of the objectives of the teacher-awards project is
to establish mathematics, science and technology mentorship programmes in each
province.
There are 2400 Dinaledi schools teachers who will participate in the maths
and science teacher-training programme in 2007. These teachers will be
supported through a mentorship programme. I would like to invite the recipients
of the awards tonight to consider mentoring teachers outside our Dinaledi
schools and to use your expertise to enhance maths and science teaching.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Education
22 March 2007
Source: Department of Education (http://www.education.gov.za)
