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Bulletin Board...
1GOAL Campaign and PPEN...
PPEN is the South African coalition partner for the 1GOAL Campaign. Watch this space for exciting ways that you can take part in this unique educational campaign, and take a stand for education in South Africa and globally ....
Press release:
June 5,2009 - The Public Participation in Education Network (PPEN) launches the Big Read campaign in South Africa - Click here to download
The Big Read
Take part in The Big Read! Click here
Meaningful access to basic education: South African Child Gauge 2008/2009
This annual publication, published by the Children's Institute, University of Cape Town, tracks progress towards realising children's rights in South Africa Click here
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SEKOLO
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN EDUCATION NETWORK (PPEN)
We come together as concerned South Africans committed to public education to issue a Call for public participation in education. This Call is the first step in coming together, across differences, to create a non-partisan network to mobilise for education – agreeing that our future depends on urgent and wide public participation in education.
Our system of education is in crisis. Despite good intentions, we continue to propagate a two-tier educational system – one for the children of the rich, and another for the children of the urban and rural poor. Our scores in literacy, numeracy and critical thinking skills show how much the education system continues to reproduce the characteristics of apartheid education. We cannot simply continue to lay the blame for this crisis on the educators alone or on learners in poor rural and urban schools. As a nation we have not successfully created the conditions for educational success in these schools.
We call on all South Africans to join in an effort to ensure that the system of public education is placed at the top of the national agenda -- and to ensure that all of us ‘step in’ to actively support a high quality education system for our children.
The education crisis is the responsibility of the government as well as of all of us who constitute the public at large. The problems we experience in public education cannot be solved by government working alone. The success and the quality of education depend on the active participation of all of us. We make this public Call on parents, communities, teachers and other educationalists, academics, NGO’s involved in education, young and old and those who occupy positions of leadership in society and organisations across the board to assist in the process of mobilising public participation in education.
First, we ask all concerned South Africans to sign this Call. Add your voice and energy to this Call. This will establish a basis for all South Africans to come together in a non-partisan network and educational movement as we move forward.
Secondly, we call for the immediate implementation of a corruption-free compulsory school nutrition scheme accountable to communities, so that even the poorest child is well nourished when she attends school.
Thirdly, we call for the establishment of an independent National Commission focused on education that serves rural and urban poor communities. Through this Call we ask that the Commission be tasked with undertaking open, public and transparent discussions, with particular emphasis on hearing the experiences and analyses of the poor, and avoiding the ‘expert’ driven model that has framed policy debates in the past. The goal of the Commission would be to produce a well considered and realistic programme for the radical transformation of the education system as a whole -- and in particular, to address the educational needs of the poorest urban and rural communities.
We stand at the proverbial crossroads. We either take the road that goes around in a long detour only to come back to where we are now – in crisis; or we take the direct, if difficult, road to the kind of education we want for our children. It is only if we have the courage to do this that we can build the kind of South Africa for which we have fought so long, and for which we continue to struggle.
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