#Sciencemustfall demand shows students have been failed

ARIELLAH ROSENBERG, CEO, ORT SA

An article published by mybroadband has opposed each of the appeals made by the students and made valid argument that those statements have no values in an academic environment.

The main responses to the video on social media were a mix of disbelief, humour and disgust: “How can you demand #sciencemustfall if you don’t believe in gravity” by @Ryk_van_Niekerk, or “That moment you want to comment on #sciencemustfall but remember the 23 per cent you got for science at school…” by @TomEatonSA.

The nation has failed our youth. Not only with setting a low (30 per cent) pass rate, not only with our miserable mathematics and science pass rate for matric, not with only 60 per cent of the grade 1 cohort reaching matric and not only with the depressing dropout rate from universities, but that our biggest failure is that we did not combat ignorance.

This UCT student mentioned that she took science throughout her school career and although she is not studying science at university, she made comments that should worry us as educators as parents and as policymakers.

The Department of Education has for more than 20 years instituted various reforms and changes to the curriculum, all to combat the impact of “Bantu education”. The Department made progress with the higher enrolment of children to schools, but has failed to provide quality education and validate the improved admission. The #sciencemustfall movement reiterates that we failed our future generation.

Science is not about race, “whiteness or blackness”, it is about studying what’s around us with curiosity, observation and experimentation. It’s about asking the questions of why things are the way they are, how things work and why things react the way they do.

This type of questioning using critical and analytical thinking skills has led to progress in science, in medicine and in technology.

Our future generations should create forums and debates on various matters and issues; we as educators, parents and policymakers need to ensure they have the skills to ask questions and enquire in analytical and critical ways to ensure they learn, progress and grow.

* ORT South Africa is a non-profit organisation, affiliated to World ORT and has trained and empowered thousands of South Africans in business development, teacher training, work readiness programmes and computer literacy.