Low Expectations from Lower Education?

Picture credit: Children from Lukhanyo Primary School, Zwelihle Township, Hermanus courtesy Godot13/Wikimedia Commons.

Glenn Ashton - It's difficult to be positive about our educational system, supported by a government department that consumes more than a fifth of our total budget. Despite this we languish at the bottom of the international league in maths and science. The educational system in several provinces is in tatters with dismal facilities. Additionally, the Minister of Lower Education is regularly at odds with the dominant teachers union and with public opinion. Add to this a mess of different systems, together with a barrage of court cases involving various aspects of education, and a picture emerges of a seriously dysfunctional educational system.

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SACSIS Launches Campus & Community Radio Programming

Picture credit: SACSIS SACSIS - The South African Civil Society Information Service (SACSIS) has been disseminating social justice content to the print media for five years. Our news analyses and op-eds have been published in a wide range of South Africa's daily newspapers. SACSIS is pleased to announce that we are expanding our content production and dissemination beyond print to the production of podcasts for dissemination via audio platforms such as campus and community radio stations. We are producing in-depth interviews with experts that cover a wide range of topics related to poverty, inequality, human rights, and social justice in South Africa and the world.

Football's Dangerous Masculinity

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Despite Horrific Repression, the U.S. Should Stay Out of Syria

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One Company Has Enormous Power in the Breast Cancer 'Market' - and Their Pricey Test Could Be Costing Lives

Picture credit: Angelina Jolie courtesy Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Irin Carmon - So far, much of the heated discussion about Angelina Jolie's brave Op-Ed in the New York Times has focused on her decision to undergo a double mastectomy after learning she carried the BRCA1 gene. It is not the only option available to women at risk, but for those who do want to consider following Jolie's path, there are structural barriers to even gaining the information. It's because one company, Myriad Genetics, owns the patent to the two genes that indicate an increased risk of breast or ovarian cancer. You read that right: The genes themselves, not the procedure to test for them.

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Videos

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The Health Impacts of Austerity across the Globe

Picture credit: As seen on Democracy Now! Video Watch - In their new book, "The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills", economist David Stuckler and physician Sanjay Basu examine the health impacts of austerity across the globe. The authors estimate there have been more than 10,000 additional suicides and up to a million extra cases of depression across Europe and the United States since governments started introducing austerity programs in the aftermath of the economic crisis. For example in Greece, where spending on public health has been slashed by 40 percent, HIV rates have jumped 200 percent and the country has seen its first malaria outbreak since the 1970s.

China Rising: The Dramatic Rise

Picture credit: Fotopedia Video Watch - After centuries of Western dominance, the world's centre of economic and political weight is shifting eastward. In just 30 years, China has risen from long-standing poverty to being the second largest economy in the world -- faster than any other country in history. From angry farmers to weary migrant workers, powerful politicians and everyone in between, what China says and does, has become of undeniable importance to the entire world. This fascinating Al Jazeera documentary provides in an in-depth look at China's transition from Communism and the Cultural Revolution to state-controlled capitalism that has brought enormous wealth to some and stability to others, but also growing inequality within the country.

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