STAFF REPORTER

MINISTER of Basic Education has expressed her heartfelt appreciation to principals and teachers for their unwavering commitment to ensuring that all learners are allowed to receive a quality basic education.

“Our teachers, principals, and education managers, such as district directors, have shown remarkable resilience and determination in dealing head-on with daily challenges on the ground,” she said.

The Minister said she would also like to give a special shout-out to the parents, schooling communities, and caregivers who have supported learners following the devastations of families due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This term has been a resounding success, with all schooling days being utilised for learning and teaching, except in unique circumstances where there were disruptive service delivery protests,” she added.

“As we move forward, let us continue to work together to improve the quality of basic education in our country. Let us work to ensure that all learners, regardless of their background or socio-economic status, are given an opportunity to receive a quality basic education that will empower them to realise their dreams and contribute to the growth of our nation.”

INSIDE EDUCATION

STAFF REPORTER

THE Department of Sport Arts and Culture (DSAC) and the Department of Basic Education (DBE) have partnered in spearheading the National School Sports Championships since its inception in 2012.

The National School Sport Championships (NSSC) which is the bedrock of sport development, remains the premier event in the South Africa school sport calendar. Ministers of both Departments entered into an agreement endorsing that schools were the incubators for sport development and talent identification.

The National School Sport Championships remains the natural stimulant of the rollout of the school sport league programme where children are provided with access to participate in an organized sport programme that has a product born out of the institutional and legislative frameworks as endorsed at the 2011 Sports Indaba.

School sport operational structures were established in March 2012 at National and Provincial levels with the objective of coordinating and rolling out of the schools’ sport program. 

The primary aim of the school sport programme is to ensure that each one of South Africa’s schools (i.e.) primary and high schools, are afforded an opportunity to participate in at least one sporting code.

The programme further seeks to address all the barriers of entry that are currently inhibiting broad based participation in school sport through the provision of the requisite support material, personnel, and competition opportunities.

This time around and as part of this programme, the high Schools National School Sports Championships with primary focus on Athletics will be taking place at Germiston Athletics Stadium from 02 – 05 April 2023 placing focus on the following: Junior (ASA U/20), Youth (ASA U/18), Sub-Youth (ASA U/16), Primary Youth and L.S.E.N. = Learners with Special Educational Needs – (DEAF & MID).

Learners will also be participating in the following activities (i.e.) Long Jump, Triple Jump, High Jump, Pole Vault, Shot Put, Discus, Javelin, Hammer throw and track and field competing in 100m – 3000m, Relays and hurdles.

INSIDE EDUCATION

THE South African government is failing South Africans on several basic human rights. According to the Amnesty International Report 2022/23, new conflicts, heavy-handed oppression from authorities, economic crises, and discrimination against women, children, and LGBTI people have been prevalent worldwide in the last 12 months.

South Africa has seen a major increase in gender-based violence, with 989 women killed between July and September. Sexual offences (11%) and rape (10%) also grew in the timeframe.

Although South Africa adopted a National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide in 2019, a national council is still yet to be established. Moreover, a review of the first year since the plan’s adoption showed that 55% of targets had not been met.

The DNA backlog – crucial for gender-based violence cases – also remained high.

Despite nearly 99 cases of rapes by police officers being reported to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), only 64 cases were recommended for prosecution, raising concerns over police accountability.

In terms of sexual and reproductive rights, South Africa continues to have a large number of early pregnancies.

Over 90,000 girls between the ages of 10 and 19 gave birth between April 2021 and May 2022.

Amnesty International said that a lack of access to reproductive health services, shortage of contraceptives, inadequate sex education, poverty and gender-based violence are all responsible for the rise in early pregnancies.

In addition, the right to education is plagued by dangerous and inadequate infrastructure.

The Department of Basic Education’s 2021/22 annual report said that nearly 3,000 schools in the country still used pit latrines, which violates the rights to health, dignity, safety and life.

The situation has since worsened, with the minister of education, Angie Motshekga saying that over 3,330 schools currently have pit latrines.

As reported by EWN, the department said that it would eliminate pit latrines from schools by 2025, however, it has missed several previous deadlines to do so.

In terms of the right to water and sanitation, Amnesty International said that the government made no systematic efforts to ensure that people had access to water after widespread floods in KZN and the Eastern Cape in 2022.

Although the rainfall in KZN was exacerbated by climate change, Amnesty International said that the local government’s poor spatial planning and maintenance worsened the situation.

Moreover, the severe water shortages in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality have been worsened by the failure of local authorities to fix leaks that caused the city to lose 29% of its water.

The effects of the flooding in KZN also affected the right to housing for many South Africans, with over 8,000 houses destroyed and over 13,000 damaged. The European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations said that 40,000 people were left without homes.

Residents had been moved to the flood-prone area of Isipingo from Durban City in 2009, ahead of the 2010 World Cup. Although the government promised to find alternative housing within six months, this remains unrealised.

In addition, excessive use of force by the police remains an issue in South Africa.

The IPID’s 2021/22 annual report recorded over 3,000 cases of assault, over 700 discharges of an official firearm, and over 200 deaths in police custody.

The reported deaths as a result of police action also grew to 410, an increase from 353 the previous year.

Finally, Amnesty International said that South Africa lacks legislation to hold government and businesses accountable for climate commitments.

Although the Climate Change Bill was tabled in parliament, there are concerns that the bill in its current form does not go far enough to address the urgent imperatives of the climate crisis.

South Africa adopted a new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) in 2021, aiming to reduce emissions with a 12-32% target range reduction. However, this figure falls short of the figure required to keep the rise of global temperatures below 1.5 celsius.

Although President Cyril Ramaphosa Just Energy Transition Investment Plan at COP26, mining-affected communities in Mumpalagna have rejected the bill due to a lack of consultation.

Business Tech

EDWIN NAIDU

MINISTER of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Dr Blade Nzimande, launched the 2023 Tertiary Institutions Youth Campaign at uMfolozi TVET College, Eshowe campus in KwaZulu-Natal on Friday.

This provincial launch follows the national launch, which was held at Rhodes University, in the Eastern Cape on 7 March 2023.

The objectives of the campaign are to:
 Promote a civic culture of ongoing engagements and exchange of ideas within
institutions of higher learning through targeted CDE programmes;
 Engage students’ views about electoral democracy and impact of participation
thereof through debates;
 Promote Online Voter Registration to students within institutions of higher learning across the Republic;
 Conduct on-campus voter registration using the Voter Management Device
and;
 Empower the students’ electorate with information to participate meaningfully
in democratic & electoral processes.

Nzimande said the department wants to improve the capacity of the Post-School Education and Training (PSET) system to meet the skills needs and development of the country.

The Department has oversight over four main categories of PSET institutions, namely: public and private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs); Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges, Community Education and Training (CET) colleges and private colleges.

“The reality is that young people need to take a stand and constructively engage on socio-political issues. No country can succeed if it does not invest in the future of young people to become tomorrow’s leaders,” he said.

As part of a commitment to expand access to higher education for students from poor and working-class backgrounds, the number of students funded by NSFAS increased from 580,000 in 2018 to 770,000 in 2021. For the current financial year, NSFAS has approved the provisional funding of a record of 1,083,055 students. The budget is projected to be around R47.6 billion.

Nzimande thanked the Electoral Commission of South Africa for involving all post-school education and training institutions in launching this Annual Tertiary Institutions Civic and Democracy Education (CDE) Youth Campaign at uMfolozi TVET College.

INSIDE EDUCATION

EDWIN NAIDU

A WEBSITE launched under the leadership of University of KwaZulu Natal’s Environmental Fluid Mechanics Lab (EFML) Co-Director, Dr Justin Pringle, can provide real-time guidance to beachgoers in Durban regarding the safety of water at popular beaches for swimming.

This comes after the increase in sewage pollution along the coastline, with Durban’s beaches often demonstrating critically high levels of Escherichia coli (E. coli), a harmless bacteria found in the guts of healthy people and animals that indicates the presence of faecal matter in the water.

While E. coli decays rapidly in a marine environment, making it a less-than-ideal indicator, harmful pathogens from sewage pollution may still be present and threaten human and aquatic health, causing diseases including cholera, dysentery, typhoid fever, and more.

In response to these challenges and in the interest of providing scientific information to the public, Pringle launched Woz’Olwandle, meaning “come to the sea” in isiZulu. Based on a tool developed for Los Angeles beaches in the United States (US), the Beach Report Card, the Woz’Olwandle website features information synthesised by a fluid dynamics computer model that was developed by UKZN’s Professor Derek Stretch (who heads up the EFML with Pringle) and alumnus Mr Dave Mardon, now an Associate at Water Environment Ltd in the United Kingdom, in the early 2000s.

This model was repurposed to process several data and estimate the concentrations of E. coli at six central Durban beaches over 24 hours, using a key of three “smiley” icons in green, orange, or red to indicate whether conditions are “good”, “acceptable”, or “poor”.

The website is hosted on a US server to prevent outages caused by ongoing load-shedding in South Africa.

Pringle hopes that the tool will not only provide the most up-to-date information for people to use in deciding if and where to swim but also spark discussion about the problem of sewage pollution and potential solutions. Real-time information is important because other information provided on water quality takes time to gather, analyse, and release, often making it out of date by the time users receive it.

The Woz’Olwandle website has already attracted attention for its efforts with 3 500 visits over the past month, from South Africa, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, China, Australia, and Germany.

INSIDE EDUCATION