Science and Technology set to revive interest from scholars
South Africa’s economic prosperity partially depends on the availability of sufficiently trained and educated scientists, engineers and technologists. However, SA is suffering from huge skill shortages and is being ranked as one of the weakest countries in delivering qualified scholars in science and technology to address the growing demand.
Successful projects where scientists already have excelled in the international arena, such as with the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) and the African Centre for Climate and Earth System Science on climate issues, are proof that SA has in fact the potential to achieve considerable heights.
Climate changes associated with global warming receive considerable attention at the moment and universities, schools, government, and the private sector could easily promote awareness about science and technology within these segments. In advanced technologies such as security, internet protocol telephony and wireless networking, vacancies are growing every year with a shortfall in supply versus demand.
The high rate at which students drop out of universities before they graduate, suggests that students receive inadequate mentoring, or their interests are not properly addressed or exploited. In seeking to address this, it’s imperative that an interest and understanding of mathematics and science are instilled in learners from primary to tertiary.
One needs mathematics to get into most scientific and engineering courses at the tertiary level. That’s why Shell Energy SA has been supporting projects since 1985, funding initiatives through the Centre for the Advancement of Science and Mathematics Education (CASME). Since its existence, Shell’s total contribution to CASME’s vital work has amounted to around R35million.
CASME’s key focus is to advance SA’s school teachers’ subject competence to properly teach skills in mathematics and science. CASME implements a range of interventions in partnership with the Department of Education, government agencies, corporate social investment programs, universities and national development initiatives.
In view of the horrific primary school literacy and numeracy findings released in June 2011 by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga, CASME also formed a three-year partnership with Engen and The Maths Centre, together with the respective provincial Departments of Education in the Whole School Development Program (WSDP).
The WSDP integrates maths and science support for students, and training and development for teachers and school management. WSDP was piloted in the rural Sekhukune district in Limpopo, Ugu district in KZN and Chris Hani district in Eastern Cape.
In addition, Engen’s Maths and Science Schools (EMSS) program offers supplementary tuition to its employees’ children. 2050 learners are currently enrolled at EMMSs in seven educational institutions across SA.
The EMSS program is linked to Engen’s bursary program, which currently supports 50 students studying engineering, commerce and marketing. The EMSS initiative has been very successful with a matric pass rate 25% higher than the national average. It also produces 40% more Bachelors graduates than the SA average.
The South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA) aims to advance awareness, appreciation and engagement of science, engineering and technology in primary schools through the Primary School Science Intervention (PSSI), and TechnoYouth workshops for underprivileged learners in grades 7 to 9 from areas in and around Johannesburg.
The success of the Thuthuka camp projects, organised by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) to address the issue of literacy and numeracy at secondary school level, resulted in the Department of Science and Technology (DST) to fund eight provincial camps per annum, secured for 5 years.
The camps target approximately 1400 Grade 11 and Grade 12 learners per annum, selected on the basis of their mathematics, science and accounting potential, who are then encouraged to choose professions in accounting, science, engineering and technology.
For students interested in astronomy, SA has already taken an important role in the global astronomy network with the SALT project, with a broad scope of opportunities opening up within this field. SA’s excellent conditions for observation in large territories unaffected by light pollution or radio frequencies make the country perfect for studying celestial bodies.
Competing against Australia (allied with New Zealand) SA – allied with eight other African countries – has launched a bid to host the €1.5billion Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The SKA will drive growth, raise the profile of science and technology among young Africans, and help meet SA’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Set to form the largest radio astronomy project in human history, 50-100 times more sensitive and 10,000 times faster than any radio imaging telescope ever built, SKA could help astronomers to possibly solve long-standing mysteries about the Universe.
The site proposed for the SKA consisting of about 3,000 dish-shaped antennas 15m in diameter spread over a vast area of more than 3,000km, is set in a radio astronomy reserve near the small town of Carnarvon in the Northern Cape. Construction is likely to start in 2016 to be done in phases with completion around 2022/2024. More than 70 institutes in 20 countries are participating in the scientific and technical design of the SKA telescope.
SA is also currently building a 64-dish precursor instrument for the SKA, the Karoo Array Telescope known as the MeerKAT which, regardless of whether SA wins the SKA bid, will be a powerful scientific instrument in its own right.
An engineering test bed of seven dishes, called the KAT-7, is already complete. The MeerKAT will be the most sensitive centimetre-wavelength radio telescope in the southern hemisphere, and astronomers from around the world are already queuing up to use it.
Already the SA SKA Project Office (SASPO) announced that the KAT-7 had produced the first atomic hydrogen spectral line images of a nearby galaxy. SASPO director, Dr Bernie Fanaroff said the KAT-7’s latest results have given confidence that SA knows how to build a cutting-edge radio telescope to answer some of the fundamental questions in radio wave-emitting celestial objects.
The design, construction and operation of the SKA telescope will have a massive impact on skills development in science, engineering and associated industries. It will drive technology development in antennas, fibre networks, signal processing, software and computing with spin-off innovations in high-precision adaptive optics, image processing, Wi-Fi, sensitive electronic detectors, and very accurate clocks.
But perhaps the most important benefit radio astronomy can bring is its ability to generate interest and awareness, thereby inspiring young people to learn about science. To kick-start the process, all learners from Grade 4 to Grade 11 were invited to enter the SASPO School competition which closed at the end of March 2012 with prizes of laptops, printers, digital cameras and organised tours to their nearest astronomy observatory.
In the science of biochemistry, a group of gene expression and biophysics scientists from SA’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have established a groundbreaking biomedical stem cell technology which could hold the key to finding cures for some of the continent’s biggest diseases.
CSIR generated the first induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in Africa. The basis of iPSC technology induces adult cells to revert back into stem cells (cells at the earliest stage of life) which can be reprogrammed to become any type of adult cell, such as skin, heart, brain and blood cells.
The ability to grow these stem cells, a complex skill currently available at only a handful of institutions in the US, Europe and Japan, holds enormous promise in regenerative medicine, which is growing new tissue to replace diseased tissue in sick individuals.
Furthermore, SA and Germany have undertaken initiatives to strengthen cooperation in science and technology. The two countries opened the German-South African Year of Science 2012/2013 in Cape Town earlier this year under the theme: Enhancing Science Partnerships for Innovation and Sustainable Development.
The aim is to pool scientific capacity and strengthen existing research partnerships focussing on seven thematic fields; astronomy, bioeconomy, humanities and social sciences, human capital development, innovation in the health industry, climate change and urbanisation. More than 200 applications were handed in by the science community of both countries.
As evident from above, long-term prospects for science in SA are very exciting with a myriad of opportunities for SA’s youth. Therefore teaching and mentoring of students in maths and science at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, should receive the highest priority.
But most of all, educators should make special efforts to build the self-confidence of students in order to belief they can excel within these segments. They have the ability and talent. To succeed, they only need encouragement, a sense of involvement and guidance.
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Written for: Capemedia – Achiever Magazine 41 – June Edition
Editor: Nadia Gamieldien – nadiag@capemedia.co.za – 021 681 7037 – 0760253047
Topic Science and technology
Deadline: 23 April 2012