A home-grown science lab kit in a box

Countries that study basic science enjoy faster economic growth, believes Klaus Jaffe, coordinator of the Centre for Strategic Studies of Simón Bolívar University in Venezuela. In his study of World Bank GDP data and scientific publications in poor and middle-income countries, Jaffe and his team as found that scientific productivity in basic science – including physics, chemistry and material sciences – correlated strongly with countries’ economic growth over the following five years. 

But in South Africa, science education is wanting. The apartheid legacy left SA with an unequal two-tier school system. Research by the Institute of Race Relations’ Thuthukani Ndebele shows that private schools and former Model C schools are well funded and well equipped. But township and rural schools – often run on a ‘no-fee’ basis – typically do not have money for expensive equipment.  

The vast majority of South African schools have no science laboratories, according to statistics released by the department of basic education in 2015. In number terms, 86% of this country’s 23 589 public ordinary schools do not have science labs. 

In most rural and township schools, science – which begs for experiential learning – is taught from a textbook. This means many young black learners don’t get hands-on tuition in a subject where learning is far more effective when it is demonstrated and practised. As a result, many young first year students who enter a university to study science have never even been a lab. 

“I remember the first time I went into the lab, I thought: ‘What do I need to do here?’ It was quite an intense and nerve-racking experience,” says Bathabile Mpofu, the founder of Nkazimulo Applied Sciences, a company that develops science labs in a box for underserved high schools. After her experience of being taught science using only a textbook at school in Mahlabathini near Ulundi, the Durban-based scientist-cum-social entrepreneur decided to step into the breach. 

While studying for a BSc Chemistry and Biology in 1997, Mpofu discovered she wasn’t the only person who didn’t have hands-on science experience. “We had practicals that started at 14:00, and ended at 17:30,” she recalls. “People who went to private or Model C schools were finished with their projects by 15:00. At 16:30 I, and the other students like me, were still trying to figure out what needed to be done. This really knocks your self-esteem and you actually start to think you’re stupid, even when you’re not,” she says. 

Mpofu graduated and started working in a commercial laboratory where she supervised interns. She noticed that despite graduating from universities, the young black scientists were under-experienced when it came to basic laboratory tasks.