DA: South Africa lacks technology educators

South Africa’s science and technology industry is under severe threat, as the country’s schools grossly lack professional educators.

Presently, the country’s ICT sector is mainly dominated by foreigners particularly in areas of mobile, telecommunications and engineering.

The country’s main opposition political party, Democratic Alliance (DA) told ITNewsAfrica.com reporters that the poor state of affairs was heavily impacting on schools owing to serious lack of professional science and technology teachers.

The DA’s shadow minister for higher education, Dr Wilmot James, who is also a member of parliament, said more than 1700 South African science teachers were not qualified to teach science, meaning that at least 50 000 learners were not receiving teaching from qualified educators.

“Science education in South African high schools is in a very poor state. The 2009 matriculation results had an extraordinary 60% of all scholars who wrote the physical science examination receiving a mark of less than 40%, failing therefore, by any decent standard of assessment”, said Dr. James.

He said the Western Cape administration would also be establishing four Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) centres of excellence.

“This will include the expansion and improvement of the Cape Academy in Tokai and Centre of Science and Technology in Khayelitsha and two additional facilities, serving previously disadvantaged learners.

“These centres will offer world class tuition in STEM and related subjects, thus not relegating learners to rely solely on educators, who may possibly be under-qualified”, concluded Dr. James.

By Goodman Majola