Education Students "speak their minds"

EDUCATION STUDENTS “SPEAK THEIR MINDS”

Ofentse Ramatsetse

“Speak your mind” was a theme for all Education students voicing out all issues concerning education system in South Africa at the General Subject Didactics (GSD) exposé held at Soshanguve North Campus on October 21.

An estimated 200 students flocked into CCT Auditorium to participate in the seminar. The aim of GSD exposé seminar was to call all education students from various levels to cluster together and tackle all educational issues as they were given a platform to do so.

Some of the challenges that were ventilated in the seminar include the use of indigenous languages in primary and tertiary institutions and poor quality of education.

“As GSD students, we have had lots of issues in class about the current education system, so we thought maybe as educators, we can come together and voice out all the problems that are challenging the education system in South Africa or even TUT as a whole,” said Pagson Ntsie, one of the speakers.

Kato Thabang, a speaker, said that students need to consider constructive solutions when addressing current issues facing the education system as a way of being proactive.

“Complaining without coming with solutions or remedies for the problem at hand doesn’t make sense; it doesn’t show if whether we are learning as educators or not.”

Mr. Ntsie also added that South Africa needs to offer free education to the disadvantaged people particularly youth to eliminate the high rate of illiteracy in the country.

“In countries like Botswana, Education is free. Why can’t South Africa offer free education? So that we can get all these guys from the street to come and study in order to eliminate the rate of crime, illiteracy, and other social issues in South Africa.”

The deputy chairperson of Avid Writers Association, Willeum Khoza, said that some of the students choose education as a left-out course and by virtue of that, many of them can’t see the significance of it.

“Many students take education as one of the courses that are actually left when people choose others, and that is not true. What we think could be a solution is that, all Universities must change the strategy; the way they advertise this course. They must come up with interesting programmes that would not only teach students how to become educators, but to encourage them as well.”

Mrs. Nkosi, GSD lecturer, said that issues that are brought a forth by students along with solutions are deemed seriously and implementation will be considered.

“As a lecturer, I am going to take all these concerns and when we are in class, we will discuss on how we can take actions; maybe we can come up with community project that would tackle such issues faced by various schools around the society.”

The GSD seminar was organized by Mrs Ramapelo, from educational studies, teaching Didactics, Sibusiso Nkosi, education student, and Gugulethu Nkosi, also an education student. Certificates and stationary were given to students who participated in the seminar as a token of appreciation.