A vision for a Reformed Christian college for South Africa
A yawning gap has existed in the South African educational landscape since the effective termination of the Potchefstroom University (PU) for Christian Higher Education (CHE) by the government in 2004. The North-West University, which was formed through the merger of the PU for CHE and the University of North West, has been positioned as a value-driven university, but for all its good intentions and successes, it cannot (and never was intended to) continue the PU for CHE’s tradition of Christian higher education. Given the growth of Christian schools in South Africa after 1994, it is clear that pupils from these and other schools have no Reformed option when they choose an institution of higher education. It is therefore suggested in this article that the concept of a new Christian college should find favour amongst Reformed Christians from all denominations, races, ethnic groups and languages in South Africa. The author argues that obstacles simply have to be overcome. A balanced Reformed approach which eschews extreme fundamentalism as well as attempts at undermining the fundamentals of the Christian faith is needed. Therefore, the formation of an inclusive pilot committee to investigate the idea is proposed.
Systems of Indoctrination: Accelerated Christian Education in England
Christian Education (ACE) is an individualised curriculum used in some private schools. It is known for its conservative Protestant stance and largely literal interpretation of the Bible, and for teaching every academic subject from a biblical perspective. ACE claims the curriculum is used in more than 6,000 schools worldwide, but there has so far been minimal academic research into the curriculum or students’ experiences of it. I attended an ACE school for some of my secondary education, and this thesis combines reflections on my experiences and analysis of qualitative interviews with students who were educated at ACE schools in England. These interviews give a sense of what it is like to attend an ACE school, students’ perceptions of their education and its effect on their subsequent lives. ACE promotional materials have in the past said the system is “designed for programming the mind to see life from God’s point of view”. From a liberal perspective, this raises concerns about indoctrination. I conceptualise indoctrination as education which makes students closed-minded, and argue that closed-mindedness is linked to cognitive biases and cognitive dissonance. I then examine ways in which ACE is likely to instill closed-mindedness in its students through the use of forced compliance, conformity pressures, and extrinsic rewards. While some participants found their ACE experience beneficial, the majority experienced inadequate education, sexism, homophobia, excessive punishment, and discrimination against those considered ‘ungodly’. Many participants described continued effects of indoctrination despite their rejection of ACE’s teachings. Inspection reports from ACE schools do not indicate awareness of these issues. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the possible effects of increased regulation on these schools.
How to do a p-descent on an elliptic curve
In this paper, we describe an algorithm that reduces the computation of the (full) p-Selmer group of an elliptic curve E over a number field to standard number field computations such as determining the (p-torsion of) the S-class group and a basis of the S-units modulo pth powers for a suitable set S of primes. In particular, we give a result reducing this set S of 'bad primes' to a very small set, which in many cases only contains the primes above p. As of today, this provides a feasible algorithm for performing a full 3-descent on an elliptic curve over Q, but the range of our algorithm will certainly be enlarged by future improvements in computational algebraic number theory. When the Galois module structure of E[p] is favorable, simplifications are possible and p-descents for larger p are accessible even today. To demonstrate how the method works, several worked examples are included.