Articles I’ve written:
- Absentee teachers are a thorn in our side [M&G, 10 Mar 2013]
- Intervening after school is too late [M&G, 21 Sept 2012]
- A tale of two schools [Politicsweb, 31 Aug 2012]
- Back to the real basics [M&G, 11 May 2012]
- South African education: the poorest choice [M&G, 8 Apr 2011] (Co-authored with Prof Servaas van der Berg)
Articles quoting my work:
- SA’s public schooling gets an F [The Mercury, 27 Aug 2012] (Also an article in isiZulu here)
- Excerpt from Bookmark Vol 26 [see page 13]
- ‘World Cup-style project’ needed to equip SA’s schools [Business Day, 10 April 2012]
- Survival times: Basic Education wants billions from big business [Daily Maverick, 12 April 2012]
- Die regering vergeet van ons [Beeld, 15 April, 2012]
- Lack of accountability hitting pupils [The Mercury, 11 May 2012]
- SA outdoes poor neighbours on absentee teachers [Business Day, 17 May 2012]
Interesting articles (education related):
- South Africa: Short-Changing the Youth – the Collapse of an Education System?
- Economist article from last year titled “Schooling the whole family: Teaching is improving but slowly. Getting parents involved could speed things up”. So many parallels between Mexico and SA. Many useful ideas in here for discussion and thought-experiments…
- Jonathan Jansen writes a short article on “Seven costly mistakes” [in SA education since the transition] – mostly just common sense, but people like to listen to him.
- Brilliant NYT article titled “Pass the books, Hold the oil” It’s basically just a new take on Dutch Disease using PISA scores and natural resource endowments.
- World Bank’s lead economist for South Africa writes an interesting article on low cost private schools in SA. Intelligent, informed and interesting article asking questions that need to be asked…(also see this FT article on private schools in SA)
- Economist article on class size in OECD countries – should we be putting the best teachers in front of bigger classes? Schleicher seems to think so.
Interesting articles (general)
- From Faust to Frankenstein - Markets alone should not determine our conception of what is desirable (must read!)
- Cool NYT article on the “Future of Economics isn’t so Dismal” where the author outlines young ‘Economists to watch” and though it was published in 2007 it is still interesting and has useful insight on making the discipline more practical and relevant.
- How did Rwanda cut poverty by so much? - Paul Collier responds to some questions
- Paul Graham’s take on the 5 regrets of the dying
- Interesting article on the politics of succession in the ANC, an excerpt: ”ANC branch activists can make their way through this mishmash of the New Testament, Lenin, and Walt Disney without having to engage with uncomfortable realities of corruption, unethical campaigning and state incapacity.”
- Andreas Schleicher on Preparing teachers and school leaders for the 21st century
- An interview with Andreas Schleicher
- Interview with Esther Duflo: “Can better data end global poverty?”
- Wonderful and insightful article on “The Law’s Majestic Equality” which opens with a quote from Anatole France “The majestic equality of the laws prohibits the rich and the poor alike from sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets and stealing bread”
- Great Article by Ferial Haffajee on the state of SA’s self-narrative. Attention ANC: We are a serious country with serious potential.
- Charming 2 minute video on organ donation – “Pass it on when you’re done with it” then register to become an organ donor here - it takes 3 minutes and you could drastically improve someone’s quality of life!
- Innovation in US higher education – the birth of a new Ivy League university “Minerva University” (Economist article) which has as its motto “Critical Wisdom”. We really do need (more ) innovation in higher education across the board.
- Top ten of urban businesses - sensible futuristic thinking like increasing data use in/by cities and the proliferation of ‘community nodes’ which act as “cafes, wireless work stations, libraries, book stores and micro farmers markets”
- Top 100 best NGO’s - in case you wanted to know…
- Wisdom from Calvin and Hobbes
- 50 most influential books of the last 50 years - useful link to have
- NYT article (22 March) on Cape Town’s racial divide
- M&G article (23 March) on Stellenbosch University and discrimination.
- Latest installment (Business Day 19 March) on the Adcorp vs UCT econometricians debate…as well as a detailed response by the UCT guys.
- “Creating a More Equal and Productive Britain” – A lecture by Professor James Heckman.
- Why is research higher status than teaching? An interesting article by a Canadian economist.
