RUTV 3

By Shanel Pillay

For all those who have forgotten… or just didn’t take notes the first time round.  Here is how to do laundry in res.

Makana Municipality is in the process of restricting entry to the Grahamstown landfill site. Anyone who is not employed by the Masihlule recycling project will be seen as a trespasser. This leaves the other people who survive off the site, cut off.

Take a quick look at this simple video on how to recycle.  By making a few easy changes to your daily refuse removal routine you can make the work of the rubbish sorters much easier.

Need to know how to get back into the lovers good books or even just what women want from their men? Watch this instructive video for an easy step by step guide on how to get yourself out of trouble and capture your girlfriends heart.

OBE was first introduced in the 1990’s when the quality of South African education came under great scrutiny. Aggravating the problem even further were issues of inequalities within South African society, with the majority of the population sidelined and discriminated against. As a result, education policies had to be revisited in such a way that they would revise educational provision in such a way that they would promote a more balanced view of South African society.

In later months the ANC ruled out Apartheid education and in doing so introducing OBE in 1997, the government’s attempt of addressing the education crisis in the country. Apart from the curricular being implemented so as to limit content-based learning it also had to respond to international trends in educational development. In March 1997 the Education Minister announced in the British parliament the launch of Curriculum 2005.

Questions still remain unanswered with people enquiring whether or not the change in South African education was for the better or for worse. Or perhaps whether the OBE curricular simply lowers the standard for high achievers, whilst relegating those who have traditionally struggled to mediocrity, instead of realising individual potential.

The depreciating quality of the country’s education cannot solely be attributed to OBE but also one may argue that it is because of our national obsession with the matriculation exam as a bellwether of achievement.

Every year thousands of matriculants, are said to complete the curriculum unprepared for the challenges of higher education let alone the workplace. The ultimum question then becomes, Are the new breed of matricualnts well equipped than their predecessors? A third of the 2008 candidates failed matric last year, despite the fact that the pass rate has been lowered to just 30% (refer to graph). The actual matric pass rate decreased by 2.7% while learners receiving matric exemptions increased by 5.2%. The Department of Education has been called to address this crisis and ensure that it improves dramatically.

Rhodes students having fun with primary school kids at the jumping catle.

We were covering the SRC Community Engagement Week. An initiative organised by the SRC to get Rhodes students involved with the Grahamstown community at large, which took place from the 16^th to the 20^th of March. The human chain was the first event to kick off the week. Residents and primary and high school learners from all over Grahamstown came to link hands with Rhodes students as a sign of unity. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Galela Amanzi relaunch took place in the location as well as other numerous displays at the library quad. On Thursday there were displays at the library and about 43 departments were invited to take part, but only three departments honoured the invitation, but it wasn’t a big problem because the bring a learner to Rhodes project was a huge success. For this initiative, students from Drostdy Hall and Kimberly Hall were shadowed by grade 11 learners to lectures, tutorials and practicals. Friday was the final day, on this day, the SRC organised a “community in unity fun day”. On this day, primary school kids came to have fun with Rhodes students; they played soccer, played on the jumping castle, learnt how to play drums and did a bit of face and t-shirt painting. The initiative was very successful judging at the turnout of students who were willing to help out and the media coverage it got. The event is not that popular within the Grahamstown community and quite relevant to Rhodes university students, therefore it was covered only by the student newspapers like Activate and Oppidan Press and Rhodos, a Rhodes staff newsletter that circulates every month and therefore we were the only broadcast journalists covering the story. The reason why we covered the story was the fact that, the story had never been done and was quite relevant to Rhodes students. The project was advertised on the Rhodes student homepage, Studentzone and the first event of the week was featured on the  Oppidan Press blog.