The Sol Plaatje University School of Education is launching the inter-university community Science-for-the-Future (S4F) Project. It is envisaged that this collaboration will enable universities to serve as hubs for the implementation of the S4F Project in regions and provinces across South Africa.
The Sol Plaatje University (SPU), University of Kwazulu-Natal (UKZN), Walter Sisulu University (WSU), Nelson Mandela University (NMU), University of Mpumalanga (UMP) and the University of Limpopo (UL) are the collaborating universities.
The project consists of two parts at SPU:
- The Family Math in Grade 3 classes and,
- Key Concepts in Science with Grade 8 and 9 teachers
The development of this project considers the enormous challenges faced by South African teachers, including, among others, a lack of resources, inadequate parental participation, and the challenge of discrepancies between the language of teaching and learning, which the Family Math programme aims to address. This will not only involve teachers, school principals and subject advisors at the Northern Cape Department of Education, but also includes parents, guardians and/or caregivers of these grade 3 learners. Mother-tongue instruction is fully supported through the learning and teaching manipulatives of this project.
The project has a positive impact on the development of mother tongue instruction in the Foundation Phase and teachers can reinforce important concepts using the provided concrete manipulatives.
In considering the fifth strategic goal to promote community engagement as a scholarly activity, the University considers the changing socio-political, economic, and public health landscapes and a future which involves the community in which it is embedded. At the heart of this is a commitment to place the institutional goals of learning and knowledge production central to high impact, public community engagement. Through the S4F Project, it gives the university the opportunity to deliver one of its priority on engagement as a scholarly endeavour.
