The current twelve-grades education system was created during the Charlemagne Renaissance of Europe. In the modern-day, most people have already reached a high level of reading & mathematics in their seventh grade of education. With internet connectivity today, you can learn anything from anywhere in the world as long as someone is willing to teach you. In South Africa, you can often go do a vocational course after Grade 10, implying that the last two years of the school education system are excessive or unnecessary.
An individual needs to know several things in their life: Reading, writing, counting, the national language, agriculture (& livestock), the entire law of the land, road rules, driving & motor vehicle mechanics, a range of computer systems, the correct format of writing a CV, how to take care of their body mentally, emotionally & physically i. e. biology & medical health. As well as the geography & history of their land.
So, ideally, we could structure the school system as follows:
• Grade 1: ~ Parents/guardians would be prepared to home school & given teaching materials.
~ Parents/guardians would teach children basic reading, writing, basic maths & national law (applying to children) in their own time.
~ The children would then be assessed by the state for competency.
~ After this grade, the children or parents would choose whether to continue homeschooling or go to public schooling.
• Grade 2: The subjects would be; the national language, National Law, Maths & Agriculture.
• Grade 3: National language, National Law, Maths, Agriculture.
SEPARATE SCHOOLS FOR BOYS & GIRLS FROM GRADE 4 ONWARDS. MALE TEACHERS FOR BOYS SCHOOLS, FEMALE TEACHERS FOR GIRL'S SCHOOLS.
• Grade 4: National language, National Law, Maths, Agriculture, Engineering basics, Physics, Computer Literacy, Geography, History, Road rules & signs.
• Grade 5: National language, National Law, Maths, Agriculture, Engineering basics, Physics, Computer Literacy, Geography (incl. Astronomy), History, Second language, Road rules & signs, Physical Education.
• Grade 6: National language, National Law, Maths, Agriculture, Engineering (incl. Motor mechanics), Physics, Computer Literacy, Geography (incl. Astronomy), History, Chemistry, Biology, Business Economics, Economics, Accounting (incl. tax-sheets), Second language, Road rules & signs, Physical Education.
• Grade 7: National language, National Law, Maths, Agriculture, Engineering (incl. Motor mechanics), Physics, Computer Literacy, Geography (incl. Astronomy), History, Chemistry, Biology, Business Economics, Economics, Accounting (incl. tax-sheets), Second language, Road rules & signs, Physical Education.
• Grade 8: National language, Maths, Second language & any other three subjects.
• Grade 9: National language, Maths, Second language & any other three subjects.
• Grade 10: National language, Maths, Second language & any other three subjects.
AFTER SCHOLARS HAVE COMPLETED THE SCHOOL SYSTEM OR VOCATION SCHOOL EDUCATION, THEY WOULD DO COMPULSORY STATE FARM SERVICE (FOR FEMALES) OR COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE TRAINING (FOR MALES). ANYONE WHO DOES NOT COMPLETE THIS SERVICE WOULD NOT OBTAIN ANY HIGHER/VARSITY EDUCATION OR FORMAL EMPLOYMENT IN THE LAND.
- No hairstyles would be allowed at school.
- There would be state school bus system to get every scholar to school.
- The school uniform would need to be the same across the country.
- Every school would be registered state property & developed by the state to certain standards. The state could build new schools, colleges & sports academies where they are needed.
- Girls get free sanitary pads from Grade 8 until the end of their school career.
- After Grade 7 child can go to; a) vocational college to study (construction, agriculture, plumbing, electrical engineering, vehicle repair studies etc.), b) choose subjects that would help them in their chosen career for Grade 8 to the end of the school system (incl. adding a third or fourth language as a subject) or c) leave the school system.
- LANGUAGES OFFERED: Arabic, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Afrikaans, English, Hindi, Swahili, Swazi.
- All subjects would be offered at all schools by rotating teachers between schools.
- The scholar with the highest marks in their district would get a free electric motorcycle from the state on their 18th birthday.
- Every school child would need to be registered on a database to ensure that they have a school in the following year.
- Medical professionals & teacher's degree bursaries for the top 10 best performing scholars in each district.
- Schools are separated by gender from Grade 4 onwards.
- School would be free for the first two children of the family until Grade 5. Third child pays. Child repeating grade pays.
- There would be regional sports academies that would select 16-year-olds & develop their talents
- Scholars over the age of 16 that are over 1,8 metres in height & are not already selected for a sport academy would be selected for their regional sport academies for basketball.
- National ID cards & passports could be done at schools.
- All people 17 years & older have a free email address from the state & would have to create a profile on the state social media to apply for a government job (Social media interactions would not determine whether a person gets a job).
- The most talented children at certain sports in each district would be given the opportunity to further develop their talent at a regional sports academy. NATIONAL SCHOOL SPORTS CODES: Athletics (60 m, 100 m, 200 m, 400 m, 800 m, 1500 m, triple jump, long jump, high jump, javelin), tennis, badminton, gymnastics, cricket, basketball, baseball, football/soccer, beach soccer, volleyball, hockey, wrestling, seven's rugby, netball.
- PHYSICAL EDUCATION: All kids required to 1) run a kilometre under 7 minutes, 2) 10 crossbar lifts, 3) do a 50 count football keepy-uppy, 4) dribble a basketball the length of a basketball field & back, 5) score five free-throws & five three pointers on a basketball court in 15 shots each, 6) hit a baseball with a baseball bat 3 times in 9 pitches, 7) a front flip & 8) a back flip. Eight events to be practiced for two hours each every week. Physical Education is not counted in school marks but students capable of doing all activities every three months would get a small certificate from the Department of Sport & a pair of takkies.
As you can imagine, this system would make incredibly disciplined & physically fit individuals to take the land forward.• All citizens over 16 years would have the option to have a state sponsored circumcisions.
• Smoking & drinking legal at 21. Lottery/gambling legal at 16.
Now, everyone who lives in South Africa knows that this is firmly an African (black) country. Over 80% of the population is black. If we were to measure race percentages of the South African population by Usonian measures, over 91% of the country would be black. It is an African country by many respects. The most spoken languages are African languages & not French , Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Dutch or some English variant. But the problem is the previously advantaged races see themselves as living in a European enclave or some sort of colony within Africa. These are also the people with the biggest voice in the global media & who fund propaganda campaigns overseas making the world think that they are the majority & are "persecuted". As a black person in South Africa, I am honestly more persecuted than white people because nobody cares about us & these previously advantaged people are quick to try stifle our progress using other black people against us. And black people are quick to sell their soul & destroy other black people for some sort of renumeration from this previously advantaged group of people. Let me repeat, BLACK PEOPLE FEEL MORE PERSECUTED IN SOUTH AFRICA THAN WHITE PEOPLE. And this is a simple problem to identify & isolate, we black people in South Africa never made our own systems even if we made most of the country's infrastructure today, it was around white-made structures. So it still feels like an Anglo-Dutch state no matter what black people do. This makes European colonisers still feel entitled to African land.
Overseas, when they see South African media, they see black people embracing white people & other races... Of course, the races of South Africa get along on surface values like black exploitation & white opulence? But on more foundational values like nationality, ethnicity, non-racialism etc. we do not see eye-to-eye. Non-racialism to many white South Africans is a Western-facing & Western-biased black majority land where whites live in comfort amongst themselves, Indians & coloureds but blacks live far away from them. The suffering of black people in South Africa is caused by two enemies; rich black people who see themselves as special & separate from the black majority & the rich white/corporations who fund them. Overseas, they are shown South Africa from the minority perspective & while black people in South Africa see some sort of magical multiracial land in South Africa on a good day, they see the simple, ugly truth on bad days i. e. a European colony which has invaded African land & persecuted it's people.
This may be more a vent than a casual opinion blog entry but I felt that it needed to be emphasized that what the black majority believes South Africa to be, what white South Africans believe South Africa to be & what the world thinks South Africa to be are three different things. And I feel it's the prejudiced, more than black or white liberals who see South Africa for what it is. The mess expands to the rest of Africa when you consider what the Berlin Conference brought us. While we are a European colony in outline in South Africa, we are not that much different to other "liberated" African countries who still have colonial puppets in power & "Made in Berlin" borders not ethnic borders. What makes us different in South Africa is that we just have a population of fascists who seem to have overstayed their welcome by more than two hundred years.
Hopefully, South African land returns to it's tribal ethnicities & we could do an amicable deportation programme for those who do not want to stay on land under tribal/ethnic African rule. That's the only logical solution for anyone who sees what's coming in the future of South Africa (& Africa). No wars, clean separation of ethnic regions into new countries would save us decades, if not, centuries of turmoil & suffering.
Reader, I trust you have found my blog informative wherever you may be on this planet. Afterall, this is a blog written by a 36-year-old, black male from South Africa & as such would have the bias of such an individual.
I'm a big advocate for comprehensive & specialised education but at the same time, we seem to forget that we need a sort of neglected knowledge - education of commonsense, general knowledge & civil nature. Now, these three concepts are often characteristics of the "developed world" & the select many peaceful, civilised societies worldwide. However, we should expect that they may not be common so we should expect turmoil & ignorance to be more common - even in a world as informed & educated such as the one we live in.
I do not believe that I am ignorant or lack commonsense, lack an above-average general knowledge or lack an acceptable amount of civil behaviour but I am willing to improve if I lack in any of the aforementioned traits. And, as much as information & education is commonplace today, we do find voids where ignorance & unrest has festered in some societies. It is unfortunate that the people living in such societies believe such an existence to be the norm, often with hilarious & embarrassing consequences. A disfunctional society often suffers from something as simple as ignorance.
I grew up in a world full of sports & sports people. My whole world was filled with football, athletics & other sports... so it is bizarre to me that football (aka soccer) is "otherised" in South Africa in favour of less common sports. Know this, football is the most common sport in South Africa, so if you do not know at least SOME football - you're not part of the majority. And football is a very enjoyable sport, it is the most common sport in the world perhaps only second to common running events. But despite all this, football gets less funding in South Africa than rugby & cricket which is more than I can say for my beloved, grotesquely neglected basketball. I first got interested in basketball watching NBA highlights with my father on some odd night in the 1990s & jumped to play it the first opportunity I got. Even though I stopped playing all sport except a little football around 2007, I stopped doing a lot of things & started doing other things in 2007. But due to my fundamental knowledge of the game, I remain interested in watching how it is played today & still play on occasion. Intro & background done. Today I believe basketball to be underfunded in South Africa as well, with netball (an offshoot of basketball) being more favoured. Look, I believe in "doing things by the book" & some might believe netball to be "pure basketball" as Naismith intended but it was not netball he endorsed & seemed to favour the more common worldwide game of basketball. While basketball is an American game; football, cricket & rugby are British games - we are neither British or American. But that doesn't mean that we need to focus on just our indigenous tribal games but I just wanted to put into context any anti-American sentiments. We "otherise" & alienate basketball in South Africa the same way the Boer community otherises & alienates football (aka sokker). And as a result, they become extremely ignorant of these two sports & try to forcefully extend their ignorance & disdain for these sports to the black community resulting in football & basketball being underfunded in South Africa because the rich oligarchs of South Africa are often whites of Germanic descent who like rugby more than either "sokker" or basketball.
I can understand people not knowing much about basketball in South Africa but not football, football is part of our upbringing, it is not possible for it to be considered foreign to black South African culture. You can dislike football in your personal capacity but it is the people's game. We do not play basketball because we want to be exclusive. In fact, I've gone out of my way to translate basketball rules as well as a few drills into my vernacular on some online platforms. I believe anyone who wants to learn & play basketball should learn it & learn how to play it the right way. I believe in embracing a unique South African basketball identity that is distinct from American basketball & understand that it can be difficult because to many in South Africa, basketball is still only played in the USA despite Spain, Germany, Argentina & Brazil being former FIBA Basketball World Cup Champions. While many might not be interested in basketball or any sport at all in South Africa, many likely still like the game. I'd even argue that basketball is as popular as cricket, at least, in South Africa.
Sometimes ignorance is unforgivable, because you can't be oblivious to the fact that people can't be at all places at once or the fact that you need to go to someone to say something to them.
These three concepts should be taught in schools under Life Orientation;
• Commonsense,
• General knowledge &
• Civil behaviour
because I do not understand how you do not know how to play football & that you should not vandalise homes. You'd expect that kind of behaviour from an extinct hominid species.
Postscript:
For context, I find Gridiron Football to be as foreign to black South African culture as rugby. We are more a people of technicality & finesse not so much of brute strength, flying bodies & dangerous collisions. I wouldn't mind a nationwide project at introducing baseball to common South Africans, it is a fun game & South Africa may have something to add to global baseball. We could gain something by creating an indigenous baseball culture & creating a local baseball league as long as our ignorance (or xenophobia) is not hidden cowardice.
Virtual Reality is only good for things like Google Earth (& perhaps Google Mars in future), some games & motor vehicle, watercraft or aircraft simulations. Augmented Reality would only be good if integrated with a GPS or a mapping system of sorts or maybe Google Images & Google Translate, I can't imagine it being used for communication while driving any vehicle or aircraft - other than a large ship - without it being a huge inconvenience if it's used for messages or other unimportant cellphone notifications.
Personally, the only eyewear tech that could be of great use would be of some geolocation use e. g. to isolate & highlight items in the real world. I can imagine AR devices that could locate a person, vehicle, location like those Rekkie smart snow goggles. AR devices linked to Google Maps where you could stalk down & hunt your stolen motor vehicle with some micro GPS trackers. I imagine if your smart glasses have a very high-resolution camera, you could hyper-zoom & see objects that are very, very far away including celestial or extraterrestrial objects. Perhaps even add x-ray vision because it can be done with modern technology.
Other than internet searching images, translating text & geolocation, some night vision or heat vision could come in useful in AR glasses... just not the nightmare of recieving messages or calls in your direct view while driving.
In any case; unless you're driving, cycling or doing military operations - these are all features that could be better put in a smartwatch than uncomfortable, heavy eyewear including the nightvision, hyper-zooming, x-ray vision, heat vision & geolocating.
