The government has launched a new initiative to train teachers at the basic school level in Basic Science Technolo­gy, Engineering and Mathematics (BSTEM).

Dubbed: “The BSTEM Programme for Basic School Teachers,” the initiative forms part of the government’s reset agenda and aims at revolutionising science, technology, en­gineering and mathematics for teachers at the basic school level with emphasise in the areas of coding, AI, renewable energy and robotics among others.

The project is targeting 8,800 teachers with 4,400 beneficiary schools to be equipped with the necessary skills as well as make the teach­ing of the subjects exciting to pupils. Launching the programme here yester­day, the Minister of Education, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, said the STEM laboratories would be constructed across the country to facilitate the teaching and learning of the subject.

A former Minister of Education, Professor Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa’i, has advocated for innovation in curriculum development as provision of equitable access to education at all levels in the country. She said this at an international symposium held in her honour, entitled, ‘Tackling Grand Challenges in Education in Africa in the Context of Emerging Technologies via Zoom.’

Rufa’i who served as Nigeria’s of education minister between 2010 and 2013 reaffirmed her lifelong commitment to improving education across Africa, despite retiring from public service after more than three decades of impact in teaching, policy making, and administration.

She described her retirement as a transition into global educational advocacy rather than a withdrawal from public life. She renewed her call for equitable access and quality education, noting that this would continue to define her post-retirement engagements. “My decision to retire early is not because I am tired, but rather to explore further avenues for service to the global community,” she said.

The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) says that upkeep loan disbursement is now strictly tied to the academic session of each institution. NELFUND disclosed this in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja on Thursday by its Director of Strategic Communications, Mrs Oseyemi Oluwatuyi.

“In line with this directive, students shall only be entitled to upkeep loans for their current academic session.
“Upon the conclusion of an institution’s academic year, upkeep payments for that session shall automatically cease,” she said. According to Oluwatuyi, students who transition into a new academic year would no longer receive upkeep disbursements for the preceding session.

She further said interested loan applicants were required to apply for the loan at the beginning of every academic session to be eligible for both institutional charges and upkeep for that particular session.
“To ensure accuracy and transparency, the NELFUND loan portal is being automated to reflect this adjustment.

Nearly one in three (about 33.33 per cent) of the teachers in Nigeria’s basic schools are unqualified, according to new data that underscores the scale of challenges in the country’s education system. Newspaper subscription bundles

Figures released by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) for 2022/23 show that only 70.8 per cent of basic education teachers meet the required qualifications. This leaves 492,912 teachers without proper credentials across the country.

The South West zone records the lowest proportion of qualified teachers, with just 66.34 per cent, and also has the highest absolute number of unqualified staff at 140,824. By contrast, the North Central zone has the highest share of qualified teachers at 74.78 per cent, followed closely by the South East (72.39 per cent), North West (72.04 per cent) and North East (71.41 per cent). The South South trails at 69.81 per cent.

Education minister Sanet Steenkamp has called on members of the public to meet the government halfway in supporting poverty-stricken children. Steenkamp was speaking in an interview with The Namibian in response to a video circulating on social media showing a Grade 1 pupil from Naiti Combined School at Okalongo, in the Omusati region, carrying an instant porridge packet as her school bag.

Steenkamp says she is familiar with many other cases of extreme poverty in the Ohangwena region, having served there as the education executive director for many years. "We have to understand that the Ministry of Education, Innovation, Youth, Sport, Arts and Culture is already providing free education.

Our teachers also go far and beyond the traditional teaching skills and their jobs and duties, and they end up digging into their pockets to ensure they support our pupils in terms of stationery, additional to what the government provides," notes Steenkamp. She says these are hard times and calls on parents to do their part.

The government will revolutionise Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education from the foundation level in the new curriculum review. As part of that, artificial intelligence (AI), engineering, coding and robotics, among others, will feature prominently at the foundation level in the new curriculum to make Ghanaian students competitive and to secure their future.

“We want to revolutionise STEM at the basic level to secure the future of our schoolchildren. I must first thank the Vice-President, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, who first conceptualised the idea,” the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, said at the inauguration of the Basic Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (BSTEM) teacher training in Sunyani in the Bono Region yesterday.

The launch brought together hundreds of students from senior high schools (SHSs) in the region. The effort is aimed at equipping teachers with modern skills, digital tools, and innovative pedagogies to make STEM exciting and accessible to basic school-level learners.

The Chinese Government, through its embassy in Liberia, is sending 92 Liberian students to China for higher education on various scholarships, while also providing 172 local scholarships to students at the University of Liberia, Cuttington University, Bomi Community College, and Tubman University.

The announcement was made Monday evening during a reception at the Chinese Embassy near Monrovia, honoring the departing students and local scholarship recipients. Chinese Ambassador Yin Chengwu congratulated the students, calling the moment "a proud milestone" for China-Liberia educational cooperation. "Warmest congratulations to all the scholarship winners! We are proud of you," he said.

The 92 recipients heading to China will study various fields, while the 172 local scholarships will support students studying in Liberia. The Chinese government said the initiative is part of ongoing efforts to improve human resource capacity in the country.

Rwandan universities have welcomed a newly signed partnership with the State University of New York (SUNY), saying it would boost the quality of education and enhance exchange among universities.

The partnership was launched in July and will help universities and other higher learning institutions, as well as Rwanda’s Integrated Polytechnic Regional Colleges, benefit from SUNY’s experience and knowledge to equip students with the modern skills set needed in the marketplace, said Joseph Nsengimana, the country’s minister of education.

The academic cooperation between the Rwandan universities and the Integrated Polytechnic Regional Colleges will be implemented under the SUNY Africa Initiative and aims to foster partnerships in key areas such as student and faculty exchanges, joint research, academic programme development, professional development for staff, and co-curricular programming.

Three African universities that benefit from grants and technical support from the government of Japan are planning to launch a new research partnership that will also promote Japanese technologies on the continent.

The institutions are the Egypt-Japan University of Science & Technology (E-JUST) in Egypt, the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Kenya, and South Africa’s Stellenbosch University. All three are beneficiaries of funding from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The partnership involves joint research, student and staff exchange initiatives, and joint conferences and workshops to grow, produce and share knowledge. Under the arrangement, each of the universities will lead a research theme in a field of its strength while the other two universities act as partners.

National youth service programmes are becoming increasingly common across the globe and, in Africa, a few countries are contemplating the introduction or reintroduction of such programmes. They are structured differently and often involve high school and university students. They seek to instil a culture of service by assisting the youth in contributing constructively to nation-building, social unity, and civic awareness.

Such programmes also have the additional advantage of enhancing practical learning experiences and employability opportunities for the youth. National youth service (NYS) programmes and universities’ community service functions often share common goals and can be mutually reinforcing.

There is a significant overlap between NYS programmes in Africa that deploy youth to underserved areas for teaching, health services, as well as environmental conservation, among others, and universities’ community service which often include student-led outreach, rural health missions, legal aid clinics, and agricultural extension services.

A Zimbabwean court has ruled that the University of Zimbabwe’s graduation ceremony on 15 August must proceed as planned after the institution’s lecturers had sought its suspension, citing “grave and unprecedented violations of university statutes” pertaining to the teaching and examination processes.

The lecturers have argued that the violations amounted to academic fraud, which include students achieving high exam scores with hardly any contact time in some modules, the use of lecturers who are not qualified to teach modules as locums during the ongoing staff strike and exam papers not going through internal and external moderation.

University of Zimbabwe lecturers have been on a strike since 16 April about salary cuts dating back to October 2018 and the university’s failure to meet contractual obligations that include paying for health insurance.

A survey of academics and management at universities in South Africa has revealed that, despite the quality of higher education having improved, there was concern that the capacity of the system in terms of resources and infrastructure had not kept pace with its massification. Furthermore, “the large number of students may undermine the quality of higher education”.

The study, Stakeholder Perspectives on the Quality of Higher Education in South Africa, conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council on behalf of the Council on Higher Education (CHE), surveyed three groups of participants: academic and management staff in public and private higher education institutions; current students and graduates; and private and public employers, employer organisations and external quality assurance bodies.

With regard to the academic staff and management component of the study, there were 516 respondents across 20 public universities and one private higher education provider, including deputy vice-chancellors, senior directors, directors and departmental heads responsible for academic planning and quality assurance or quality management; teaching and learning; community engagement; and evaluation and assessment from 12 public universities.