Pretoria - Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor has encouraged learners who have won the Square Kilometre Array (SKA)-MeerKat Schools Competition to study maths and science as the country needs more people with these skills.
Learners in Grades 4 to 11 from various schools throughout the country were given an opportunity to enter a competition based on the SKA project. A total of 200 000 competition forms were distributed to various schools, science centres and community centres.
The department received over 36 000 entry forms in the primary and high school categories across all nine provinces. Learners had to complete a multiple choice questionnaire based on the SKA project and fill out a form.
The aim of the competition was to increase awareness of one of the most exciting engineering and research projects ever undertaken. Laptops, printers, digital cameras and organised tours to their nearest astronomy observatory were up for grabs.
Speaking at the awards ceremony in Pretoria on Monday, Pandor told the successful learners that the country needed more scientists. "We want to invest through you," she said.
Pandor also encouraged the learners to be innovative so they change the character of South Africa.
South Africa and its partner countries won the bid to host most of the telescope - 70% of the telescope will be built in Africa and 30% in Australia.
Once complete, the SKA will consist of about 3 000 dish-shaped antennae spread over an area of over 3 000 km. The core of the telescope will be constructed in the Karoo region of the Northern Cape, with outlying telescope stations throughout South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Mauritius, Namibia and Zambia.
Karobo Melato, 14, a Grade 7 learner at Boiterelo Primary School, was one of the learners who won the competition, told SAnews that upon completing matric, he wanted to be a technician in the Defence Force.
"I want to operate the big machines in the defence force," he said.
Another winner, Seth Sekhobo, 14, in Grade 8 said he wanted to be a pilot. "I am interested in planes and I see myself becoming a pilot," he said.
The magnitude and sensitivity of the SKA telescope will allow scientists to explore the origins of the first galaxies, stars and planets and the evolution of the universe. It will be able to collect weak cosmic radio signals from the edges of the universe from a time before the first stars and galaxies formed.
South Africa, as host of the SKA, is expected to become a global centre for information technology, fundamental physics, astronomy and high-tech engineering. Top scientists and engineers throughout the world will be attracted to our shores.
