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Some things in life are free!
Cisca Vennard
Six UCT students are spearheading an initiative to provide a much-needed,
up-to-date mathematics, physics, and chemistry 'textbook' to all Grade 12
pupils, across South Africa for free. The group plans to 'roll out' the Free
High School Science Textbook (FHSST) by the end of 2004 and appear to have
developed a model for educational texts that could easily be applied to other
subjects at all levels in South African and, indeed, global curricula.
"Nobody will stand to gain financially from the project. It is purely a
charitable undertaking", says, co-founder of the FHSST, Mark Horner, who
explains that the text will be made available at no charge on the Internet so
that the texts can be provided to learners for the printing cost alone. The
content is attained at no cost by coordinating the
voluntary contributions of students, academics, and teachers, who, like the
members of the FHSST project, want to contribute to the future of South Africa
with their talents, skills and dedication.
The reality is that no single individual can give up hundreds of hours of
their time to write such a textbook only to give it away for free, let alone
have it ready in a reasonable space of time. According to Horner, he and
colleague Samuel Halliday (Edinburgh), started plans for the FHSST with the
premise that, "If we all contribute a little bit, we could probably write
something quite quickly".
"We have 9 people already and we have written more than 100 pages"
says Horner, "We are looking for more people who can write a few pages or
sections and others who can spend some time editing the chapters".
Ultimately, to lend credibility to the final texts, the FHSST project has
enlisted the help of highly accredited guest editors who will tackle each of the
contributed sections. In addition, to ensure that the final product is
accessible to many language levels and meets with outcomes-based curricula,
standards and layout, members of UCT's Education Department have already pledged
their support by making the project part of their
PGCE syllabus for 2004.
"For a thousand Rand you could produce 30 textbooks", says Horner,
in that way, he adds, you can encourage local businesses to support their local
schools. For example, by donating a few thousand Rand, a business can make a
huge difference! The FHSST is already considering as many options as possible to
get sponsorship so that the text can be distributed to schools that need books
and have already identified that they could solve The Mindset Project's need for
mathematics and physics material completely.
Project member, Spencer Wheaton says, "I think all of us agree that
there is a need for a new science textbook". Colleague, Sarah Blyth echoes
this sentiment by adding that the new outcomes-based education system calls for
current texts to 'revamped'. "There's also the fact that it's free",
she says, "We try to look at it as our contribution to society and to South
Africa."
The success of this project relies on this kind of attitude!
The group is looking for many contributors who have some time to give up for
this worthy cause. If you have time to write a small section, edit a few pages
or have notes or interesting essays to contribute, your help would be greatly
appreciated. Details of how to contact the group and what contributions they are
looking for are available on their website at www.nongnu.org/fhsst.
You can help make a difference!
More information:
www.nongnu.org/fhsst.
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