Government has drafted a proposal which would see maths and science graduates complete compulsory community service by teaching these subjects at schools, the Sunday Times reported.

The proposal aims to improve the quality of teachers at local schools by drafting graduates from state-funded universities into a compulsory period of teaching following their graduation.

Science and Technology Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane told the Sunday Times they hoped the proposal would encourage graduates to give back to the community and resolve the countrywide shortage of maths and science teachers.

“Why should we battle to find maths and science teachers in this country when there are people that have done maths and science at public universities,” she said.

University of KwaZulu-Natal lecturer Busisiwe Goba agreed with the proposal and said that participants should be paid a stipend for their compulsory community service.

“There is a huge shortage of good maths and science teachers in the country,” she said.

“It will be good if those who major in maths, applied maths, and statistics can give back to society.”

Public research

The proposal forms part of a draft white paper on science and technology which also aims to make publicly-funded science research freely available to the public.

According to the draft white paper, this would bring South Africa in line with open science models prevalent across the world, and would remove barriers to innovation.

This would result in all publicly-funded research data being available to the public for free, with the exception of data which is confidential or has the potential to compromise national security.

If this proposal is implemented, all research from South Africa’s public universities would be made available to the public and scientists would retain the intellectual property rights for their work.

The white paper also proposes an increase in South Africa’s spending on research and development to 2% of GDP within 20 years.

The proposal for compulsory community service comes after findings in March 2018 that South African teachers could not pass simple maths and English tests.

Teachers scored as low as 10% for English first additional language and 5% for maths.

The teachers’ lack of ability was not the only issue raised in the study, as classes at schools were also found to be frequently disrupted.

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