NMMU winter school gears up
PUPILS from all over the friendly city will not have time to enjoy their holidays as the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) Winter Schools Programme kicks off at the end of this month.
Almost 900 pupils from grades 11 and 12 will give up their school holidays as they look to lay down the foundation for a bright and successful future.
The pupils will concentrate on three of the main problem areas facing many schools – accounting, engineering and science.
The winter school coincides with the Science Discovery Week taking place from June 29 to July 3.
Pupils will attend a week-long accounting winter school programme from June 29 to July 3, while Grade 11s will attend a three- day programme starting on July 7, and this will be sponsored by PricewaterhouseCooper.
Pupils will have to pay a small amount of R60 should they wish to attend this programme.
The engineering programme has been running for the last 10 years. NMMU spokeswoman Roslyn Baatjies said the programme aimed to assist grade 11 and 12 pupils to improve their marks and thus create a better chance for them to apply to, and attend university.
Baatjies said she expected a good turnout. “It will depend on how many pupils register. However we anticipate about 1 000 pupils attending our two winter school programmes and the Science Discovery Week,” she said.
Another initiative to be undertaken by the winter school programme will be held off campus.
It is an initiative by NMMU’s Department of Social Development professions and social work lecturer Dr Veonna Goliath.
The project will be held at Bethvale Primary School in the northern areas. Tutors from NMMU’s Faculty of Education’s post-graduate programme will tutor grade 10 and 11 pupils in specific subjects.
“The winter school is truly interdisciplinary in nature and has a longer term community development focus,” Goliath said.
ATOP laser physicist will next week entertain and educate hundreds of pupils attending Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s annual Science Discovery Week. Prof Andrew Forbes, of Wits University, will present Light Fantastic at NMMU’s South Campus Auditorium from 9am to 10am next Wednesday, during which he will highlight the history of light, the fascination it invokes and how it has been harnessed for a myriad of applications.
“Light touches our lives in so many ways ... Can you imagine a world with- out lights? I don’t think it matters what we talk about in reaching out to budding young minds. But fortunately for me, light is a wonderful topic,” he said.
“Our future lies with light. Think back 10 to 20 years … telephone calls would have involved copper wire and electrons – today it is fibre optics and light.
The old television sets were big tubes – electrons directed to a screen; now it is light-based technologies like LCD and plasma TV sets.”
Forbes’s talk is one of dozens of events, lectures, experiments and workshops that will be enjoyed by nearly 300 pupils attending the Science Discovery Week.
The grade 11 and 12 pupils from around the Eastern Cape are introduced to the fascinating fields of science in an informal and fun format.
The event, which started with just 60 pupils eight years ago, gives pupils who are considering a career in the sciences an ideal opportunity to discover what options are available to them.
“Science Discovery Week allows learners to see for themselves what careers open up for those who pursue a science degree,” Physics department head Prof Andre Venter said.
Forbes chairs the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers’s international conference on laser beam shaping, serves on the board of several optics journals and is a member of the Photonics Initiative of South Africa and the Academy of Science of South Africa.
His research interests include laser beams and resonators, digital holography, orbital angular momentum and quantum optics.
NMMU and Rhodes University, as hosts of the 60th annual conference of the South African Institute of Physics,