MTN Sciencentre

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The MTN Sciencentre is a not-for-profit science centre in South Africa. It is based in the Western Cape, in the Canal Walk Shopping mall. It forms part of a wide range of non-classroom initatives to improve the quality of science understanding and science literacy in South Africa. More than a decade after the end of racially segregated education in South Africa, it was recently announced that the number of high school students with university-level qualifications in mathematics and science had dropped rather than improved. In the TIMS study, South African students came last out of all the students surveyed in the continent, despite the fact that South Africa has the strongest economy and the highest living standard on the continent. The results in science and mathematics were so bad that the South African government announced recently that it would not be taking part in the most recent TIMS survey. And many South African companies say they are complying with mandatory Black Economic Empowerment race quotas by hiring people from Zimbabwe, Zambia and other southern African countries, because the skills level of South African graduates does not appear to be of sufficient quality. The MTN Sciencentre will be trying to get its Ericsson cellphone into the Guiness Book of World Records in September 2007 as the world's biggest working cellphone. And the MTN Sciencentre will be hosting the world congress of science centres in 2011.