Study Abroad in South Africa

South Africa truly is a world within one country! South Africa is larger than France and Spain combined and stretches from the temperate Cape to the subtropical northern regions bordering with Zimbabwe and Mozambique. In the boundaries of South Africa are some of the world's most breathtaking landscapes; canyons, wildernesses showcasing game and cliffs dropping to the ocean

South Africa, on the continent's southern tip, is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west and by the Indian Ocean on the south and east. Its neighbors are Namibia in the northwest, Zimbabwe and Botswana in the north, and Mozambique and Swaziland in the northeast. The kingdom of Lesotho forms an enclave within the southeast part of South Africa, which occupies an area nearly three times that of California.

The southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas, located in the Western Cape Province about 100 mi (161 km) southeast of the Cape of Good Hope

Economy
South Africa has developed from an agrarian into a modern industrial state since World War II. Today, the economy is well-diversified and the country is capable of producing a wide range of consumer and investment goods. South Africa produces one fifth of the entire production of the African continent.

The mining industry still plays a prominent part. However, over the last few years, the country's economic dependency on the export of raw materials, especially on gold, has lessened.

The economy is based on foreign trade. More than half of the gross national product (GNP) is achieved through exports and imports. By investing in modern production technologies after the apartheid era, South African products became more and more competitive on the world market. In 1996, an export surplus of about 8,7 billion Rand was achieved. Exports consist mainly of mineral raw materials, agricultural produce, chemical products, machinery, electric appliances and vehicles. Import goods are machines, plastic products, chemicals and also vehicles.

The main customer countries are: Japan (7.2 %), Italy (6.2 %), USA (6.2 %), Germany (5.1 %), Great Britain (4.8 %) and Zimbabwe (4.1 %). Imports mainly come from: Germany (13 %), USA (11 %), Great Britain (10.5 %), Japan (7.4 %), Italy (4.4 %) and France (3.2 %).

Population
Population growth rate: 0.26% (2001 est.)

Education system
Schools can be divided into two categories, namely public schools and independent (private) schools. There is also provision for special school education. The levels of school education are pre-primary, primary and secondary. Pre-primary caters for children from the age of three years to school-going age and is not compulsory. Primary education consists of two phases - junior primary which includes grades 1, 2 and 3, and senior primary which includes grades 4, 5 and 6. Secondary education also consists of two phases - junior (grades 7, 8, 9) and senior (grades 10, 11, 12). Education is compulsory for learners between the ages of seven and 15 years of age, or learners reaching the ninth grade, whichever occurs first. A child enters grade 1 at the beginning of the year in which he turns 7 years of age. The school year in South Africa is from January to December.

Basic learning activities during junior primary involve learning to read, write and calculate, and the development of language proficiency. During the senior primary phase, learning activities centre on reading and oral proficiency in the mother tongue and second language, mathematics, history, geography, general science and a skill such as needlework, woodwork or art. In the junior secondary phase most subjects are compulsory, while pupils have to choose two subjects in addition to those already offered. At the end of the senior secondary phase (grade 12), pupils write a public examination in a minimum of six subjects. The examination in each subject is conducted at three levels: higher, standard and lower grade. It is this public examination which determines whether a pupil is eligible to enter a higher education institution.

Higher education includes technical college education, teacher-training, technikon and university training.

There are 129 technical colleges in South Africa. The courses at these colleges are very practice-orientated and include theory and design. The levels of training, examination and certification extend from N1 to N6.

South Africa has 21 fully-fledged universities and 15 technikons. Technikons provide degree studies.

Teacher-training is carried out at colleges of education which offer three or four-year diploma courses for initial qualifications for primary or secondary school teachers.

Foreigners are allowed to study at South African higher education institutions, but require a study visa to do so. A study visa is granted on the fulfillment of various conditions

Languages:
There are eleven official languages, including Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu

Some words in african are given below with their english transaltions

Engish	African
baby	mauna
hog	gooloo
back	nema
horse	valo

Currency:
The official currency is the Rand (R).It is divided into 100 Cents

Cities
The major cities of south africa :-
Messina
Pietersburg
Pretoria
Johannesburg
Upington
Kimberly
Bloemfontein
De Aar
Saldanha
Cape Town
Port Elizabeth
Mossel Bay
East London
Durban
Richards Bay
Ladysmith