Professor Eric Maluta has received the first South Africa Institute of Physics (SAIP) Award during SAIP’s 68th Annual Conference that was hosted by Rhodes University at Grahams Town from 01 – 05 July 2024. The prize was awarded for his sustainable commitment and excellence in Physics education through selflessly supporting and contributing to the efforts of the SAIP to improve, support, pioneer and entrench best practices and suitable methods of teaching and learning phys-ics in South Africa. The South Africa Institute of Physics aims to improve literacy, numeracy and mathematics and science outcomes, including to increase the number of students who can study mathematics and science-based degrees at universities.
Professor Maluta has been a pioneer of the SAIP teacher development programme in different provinces of South Africa. As the Chair of the Local Organising Committee of the SAIP annual conference in 2019, his leadership roles assisted him to be nominated as a member of the SAIP council with the portfolio of Teachers Development Programme. He was able to engage different stakeholders and promote the teacher’s development programme to different districts and prov-inces in South Africa, through funding from Allan Gray Foundation.
The SAIP teacher’s development started at the University of Johannesburg, Soweto Science Centre and was brought to Vhembe East and Vhembe West Education districts as they were targeted areas, due to the districts dedications of producing excellent science learners in Grade 12. The SAIP programme has been running in these two districts for many years and it has been improving the learners’ results. Professor Maluta’s dedication of reaching as many rural and urban areas has been archived as the programme was rolled out in different districts in parts of the nine provinces of South Africa. The SAIP Physics Teacher Development Programme is South African Council of Educators (SACE) accredited and has attracted more educators.
Professor Maluta is currently the newly appointed Director of the Green Technology Confucius Institute and as a physicist and science communicator, he is a member of the South Africa Institute of Physics Council as President-Elect and will resume the presidential duties of the SAIP in July 2025 after the annual conference. He is currently a member of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), Commission 14 on Teachers Education and the South African Association of Science and Technology Centres Board of Directors.
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