Higher Education, Science and Innovation minister Blade Nzimande says his department is working on a new funding model for university and college students.

Presenting his departmental budget speech on Thursday (2 June), Nzimande said the updated model is to be presented to president Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet by July.

“Government has committed and is working upon a comprehensive student funding model for our universities and colleges.

“As part of the development of our comprehensive student funding model, through the ministerial task team on student funding, we are engaging both the public and private components of the financial sector to come up with a funding model to support students in the ‘missing middle’ income bracket and post-graduate students who cannot secure funding from the National Research Foundation.”

This model will incorporate the existing funding available from the state and explore alternative funding sources, he said.

In February, Nzimande announced a CPI-linked increase in tuition fees for 2022, noting that the sector is heavily reliant on tuition and residence fee income for universities to remain operational.

Data shared by Nzimande shows that student debt has grown in the country’s university sector significantly in recent years.

Unaudited data showed that an estimated R6.1 billion was owed by students at the start of the 2021 academic year.

Audited accumulated gross student debt as of the end of December 2020 was R16.5 billion. This amount included students who have exited university, carrying debt.

A survey conducted by the department in 2021 showed that an estimated 56.2% of students with debt owed less than R10,000; 32.9% owed between R10,000 and R50,000, while 10.9% owed more than R50,000. The survey also showed that NSFAS students owed R5.3 billion.

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THE Democratic Alliance (DA) has welcomed civil society’s opposition of the government’s Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill.

Various civil society groups and the DA , in particular, have criticised the proposed provisions in the bill, calling them a ‘coup’ against school governing bodies.

Thus far, 19 civil society organizations have already sent the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, a letter highlighting all the problematic clauses of the BELA Bill.

The DA said the bill seeks to enforce the ANC government’s ‘skewed war on Afrikaans’ without considering the far-reaching implications on quality teaching in other indigenous languages.

The bill, which was first announced in 2017, seeks to provide updated amendments to sections of the South African Schools Act.

This includes stricter rules around student attendance, admissions and language policies.

“The DA has extensively communicated on the problematic aspects of the BELA Bill and the ‘Lesufi clauses’ that will remove school governing bodies’ (SGBs) power to decide language and admissions policies that serves the best interests of their communities,” the party said on Monday.

“As such, the DA will fight the BELA Bill with everything in our power and continue to oppose it in Parliament.”

The party also slammed MEC of Education in Gauteng, Panyaza Lesufi, for backing certain clauses in the bill which it deems ‘racist’.

This after Lesufi said in recent weeks that no schools would be reserved for certain races or for races that speak a certain language.

“The Gauteng MEC of Education, Panyaza Lesufi, and his ANC comrades’ irrational hatred of Afrikaans and all speakers of the language will not only disadvantage them, but also mother tongue education of all indigenous languages and quality education as a whole,” the party said.

“The BELA Bill is another example of the ANC government putting ideology above the well-being of the people they’re meant to serve. And as national government, they’re meant to serve all the citizens of South Africa, irrespective of the language they speak.”

The DA urged the public to submit their concerns in writing to Llewellyn Brown, the secretary of the parliamentary portfolio committee on basic education via email to belabill02@parliament.gov.za or online at https://forms.gle/MoC6AdbdQyYPk3Y49 or via WhatsApp: +27 60 550 9848 by no later than 15 June 2022 at 16:00.

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THE Department of Basic Education needs to urgently consider changes to South Africa’s school system to make up for teaching time lost during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This is according to new research by Stellenbosch University, which shows most learners in South African schools missed at least three-quarters of a school year over the course of 2020 and 2021, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, lockdowns, school closures and rotational timetables that were introduced to maintain social distancing in classrooms.

Conservatively estimated, learners have fallen 40% to 70% of a school year behind earlier cohorts in language and much more – 95% to 106% of a school year – in mathematics, the researchers said.

To address these issues, the researchers recommend several interventions:

Extra time

Mathematics deficits due to lost time amount to at least a year of learning in all grades. Extra time is required for Mathematics at all levels to catch up on the year lost.

The researchers added that mathematics and language are gateway subjects, forming the basis for learning in all other subjects.

As such, additional time for catching up on these subjects should be sought. Where feasible, time allocations for other subjects should be reduced or non-core subjects suspended or integrated into other subjects in order to free up time for language and mathematics.

Timetables

Any catch-up programme requires additional time. One way that this can be achieved is to strengthen the use of existing instructional time.

As schools return from the disruptions of the past two years they need to be supported in maintaining regular school days and normal timetables.

Shorter days (for the foundation phase or on Fridays) should not be permitted. Careful regulation of school days during examination times must be undertaken to ensure that terms run their full course and a maximum number of school days are utilized for instruction.

The district and circuit managers have a crucial role to play here, the researchers said.

Less homework and other cutbacks 

Attention to addressing backlogs in reading and number sense in the Foundation Phase is a priority. Teachers must be supported in utilising existing resources and making sure that learners have the opportunity to take reading material home.

In subsequent phases, the overfull curriculum and homework tasks in other subjects should be reduced to allow learners to give more attention to catching up in Mathematics and Language.

In other words, the instructional load of all subjects apart from Mathematics and Language needs to be reduced. This will require discussion and coordination amongst staff in schools across subjects and grades.

Benchmark tests 

Diagnostic assessments of learners’ knowledge to identify gaps should be done by individual teachers.

The government could assist teachers by providing quality benchmark assessments and assistance to teachers in interpreting the results of these tests.

Teaching assistants 

The sole task of the educator assistants should be to work through the previous year’s DBE Rainbow workbook with individual learners.

This will provide, especially struggling, learners with one-on-one instructional and effective support.

Trimming 

The Department of Basic Education needs to attend to the trimming of the curriculum as a matter of urgency.

Certain learning areas/topics should be omitted or consolidated, and others delayed. The focus should be on mastering those skills and concepts that are necessary for progression in learning in subsequent grades.

As an example, in mathematics, definitions of three-dimensional shapes can be left for later grades while core foundational content is mastered.

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THE Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) conducted a meeting with homeschooling and online school providers on the 2nd of June 2022.

This is the first meeting where the GDE reached out to service providers in the home education sector as part of stakeholder engagement and relationship building.

Chriselda Mosibudi-Makhubela, the Director for Independent Schools at the Gauteng Department of Education, expressed the objective of amplifying the voices of learners that are home educated, as well as those of the key stakeholders to work towards turning around the prior views on home education.

South Africa has seen a surge of online schools opening in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some online schools were already established pre-pandemic due to a natural growth in the home education market inherent in the country, whilst others developed in response to the perceived demand in the market for online schooling.

In the US, online schools have been well attended for a few decades already and have seen mature and well-developed online schools emerge as viable and important alternatives for numerous students across the states.

Pre-pandemic there were over 375 000 students between the ages of 6 and 18 attending state-wide full-time online school programmes, a number that has almost doubled for the 2021-2022 school year in the US.

In South Africa, the numbers are not that clear and pre-pandemic estimates of 100 000 homeschoolers have increased dramatically to more than 300 000 according to the Department of Education.

Chriselda Mosibudi-Makhubela has previously indicated that up to 4% of learners can be home educated in South Africa.

The director also expressed that the GDE is very interested in doing research to learn more about home-based education and to improve on assessment and curriculum provision in Gauteng, especially for home education.

With the growth in the interest in home-based education, accelerated by the pandemic, many online schools have emerged.

At the meeting on the 2nd of June it became evident that clearer guidelines and frameworks are required to establish a minimum standard to ensure that all learners get the best possible education from homeschooling providers and online schools.

The different curriculum providers and homeschooling providers present at the meeting had varying levels of maturity of internal processes, curriculum delivery, and assessment structures.

Wingu Academy was encouraged to see that our processes and standards are high and aligned to policy and guidelines available and we are excited to share what we have found to be effective in our approach to online distance learning.

Wingu Academy is formally inviting collaboration with national and local departments of education and wishes to support the core values that Director Chriselda Mosibudi-Makhubela shared at the meeting of “excellence, compliance and relationship building”.

Wingu Academy is optimistic and welcomes the pending regulatory framework to be approved by the end of October 2022, and the opportunity to forge a strong relationship with the GDE.

“At the meeting Wingu Academy extended an offer to support the Gauteng Department of Education with our in-house expertise in curriculum mapping to assist with smoother transitioning of students between International and the CAPS curriculum to make it more accessible for students to transfer between home education and public or independent schools where needed.” explains Ian Strydom, Managing Director of Wingu Academy.

“Wingu Academy has been applying the policy on home education and has simultaneously aligned all internal processes and quality assurance measures with the local and international requirements of traditional independent schools, and are ready to adopt any further recommendations by the Department of Education.”

“The Academy is registered with the South African Comprehensive Assessments Institute (SACAI) as a distance education provider for the CAPS programme it is currently offering, and is a registered Pearson Online Centre for the International British Curriculum.”

“The Academy is also finalising the registration of an independent school in its network awaiting final feedback from the local department of education and as such has comprehensive alignment with the available guidelines from the Department of Basic Education.” Strydom concludes.

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A DOZEN South Africans dressed as mermaids and mermen frolic in a Johannesburg pool, mimicking the movement of the mystical sea creatures.

Mermaiding is a fast-growing sport worldwide, and now South Africa has its own school to teach it — the “Merschool”.

Before diving in, students each slip on a brightly coloured fabric tail ending in a monofin.

The swimmers are black and white, from 13 years old to in their forties. They include a schoolteacher, a yoga instructor and even an accountant.

“It’s lots of fun,” says mermaiding instructor Izelle Nair.

“It’s for fitness, it’s for fun, it’s for fantasy, it’s therapy — but most of all, mermaiding is a sport.”

In the water, students undulate up and down the pool perfecting their dolphin kicks, or practise sculling — hand movements to propel the body also used in synchronised swimming.

“We swim with a dolphin technique and we use sculling, and then we put it all together and we work out a little sequence,” Nair says.
To be a mermaid — or merman — all that is required is a little technique, some breath-holding skills and a love of costumes.

Underwater, students attempt to perform a graceful aquatic backflip.

Nadia Walker, another mermaid coach from the world of synchronised swimming, says both sports have much in common.

“The back rolls, some of the warm-ups and activities that we do, come from swimming,” she says.

The school hopes to send at least one contender to next year’s World Mermaid Championships in China — and that one day the discipline will become an Olympic sport.
— AFP

IT is a dismal situation for the South African labour market, warns University of the Western Cape (UWC) economist, Professor Derek Yu, as the Statistics South Africa’s 2022 Quarter Labour Force Survey first quarter data has been released on 31 May.

Yu noted that South Africa will have a very tough time ahead, just to revert to the pre-COVID labour market level, not to mention to promote youth employment and entrepreneurship more rapidly in the years ahead.

He said the current overall trends show, upon examining people aged 15-65 years at the time of the survey, that the number of employed decreased by close to 1.5 million between 2020 in the first quarter – just before lockdown started in the last week of March 2020 – and 2022 in the first quarter.

In addition, the first quarter of 2022 was a time when half of the SA adult population was either partially or fully vaccinated, while unemployment increased by 0.79 million. Furthermore, the labour force participation rate (LFPR) dropped by 3.5 percentage points, most likely because some people felt discouraged from seeking work anymore due to the disruptive lockdown restrictions.

This happened while the unemployment rate went up by more than 4 percentage points to 34.5%, from 30.1% in the first quarter of 2020.

“We can be almost 100% certain that the National Development Plan (NDP) labour market goal of dropping the country’s unemployment rate to 6% by the end of 2030 will not be achieved unless a miracle happens and the unemployment rate speedily drops by 3.5 percentage points per annum in the next 8 years,” said Yu.

“Already experiencing a stagnant real GDP annual growth rate of about 1% per annum in 2014-2019, South Africa suffered an abrupt 6.4% decline in real GDP growth in 2020, before enjoying a growth of “only” 4.9% in 2021. At the time of writing, the International Monetary Fund predicted that South Africa’s real GDP would only increase by a moderate 1.9% in 2022 and 1.4% in 2023. Hence, to expect the country’s unemployment rate to go down to 6% by 2030 is an almost impossible ask.”

Suffering the greatest decline in employment between 2020Q1 and 2022Q1 were:

Africans (accounting for 75% of decline of employment during the 2-year period.
The three youngest age cohorts (accounting for nearly 80% of job losses) – further worsening youth unemployment in the country.

Those without Matric (representing 80% of employment decrease during the two years). This finding is not surprising, given the structural change in the economy, as the less educated and skilled ones are relatively more likely to lose their jobs during the economic lockdown.

Service workers as well as craft and related trades occupation categories – these two categories involve close face-to-face contact with customers, and hence were most likely worst affected by the lockdown restrictions. They represented 22% and 21% of employment decline, respectively.

Yu explains, “When only considering the employees, employment loss was the greatest (accounting for a huge 47% share of total job loss) amongst employees who reported working for a large enterprise with at least 50 employees. This result is not surprising, as it is understandable that the owners of these large enterprises need to cut labour input cost by retrenching some of the employees,“ he noted.
“It is also concerning that 28.4% of job losses happened to employees who reported working in small enterprises with only one to four staff. This result implies some micro-enterprises failed to survive under the difficult circumstances during the lockdowns of the past two years.”

SUPPLIED| Professor Derek Yu is a Full Professor and Chair: Economics in the Department of Economics at UWC. For more information about studying economics at UWC.

THE fire that broke out on Sunday at Drommendaris Primary School in Boksburg, Gauteng, has damaged eight classrooms.

The Gauteng Department of Education confirmed the incident on Monday.

“The Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) wishes to confirm an incident that occurred on Sunday, 5 June 2022; where a fire broke out at Drommedaris Primary School in Reiger Park, Boksburg, damaging eight (8) classrooms,” the Department said in a statement.

According to information received by the Department, the School Governing Body (SGB) was alerted of the fire at approximately 13h00.

One of the school’s general assistants reported the incident and the local fire brigade managed to douse the fire.

“Unfortunately, eight (8) Foundation Phase (Grade R – 3) classrooms and the school’s storeroom were damaged as a result of the fire,” said the department’s spokesperson Steve Mabona.

The police are currently investigating the circumstances that caused the fire.

Mabona said that the GDE is working to ensure that learning and safety of the learners is not compromised.

“The GDE is working tirelessly to ensure that learning at the school, as well as the health and safety of learners, is not compromised due to this incident, Mabona said.

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NORTH West Province has renamed the provincial bursary scheme, which is aimed at benefitting thousands of students from poor backgrounds, to the late ANC Youth League (ANCYL) stalwart, Victor Thebe Sifora.

The bursary scheme is aimed at preserving the legacy of Sifora as an activist, scholar and struggle veteran.

It will also provide financial support to students with poor backgrounds, granting them opportunity to further their studies in different institutions of higher learning.

North West Premier, Bushy Maape, said over R4 million has already been set aside for the bursary scheme in the current financial year. Since 2016 the bursary has benefited over 800 students.

In his address during the launch at the Mahikeng campus at the North West University., Maape appealed to business and other social partners to help the Bursary Scheme raise funds to enable government to increase its intake of beneficiaries.

The launch was attended by Local Mayors, Councilorsy, MEC for the Department of Education, Wendy Matsemela and the Sifora family members.

Also present at the launch was a delegation from North West University led by Potchefstroom Campus Deputy Vice Chancellor, Daryl Baila.

“Our plan is to see more learners particularly from rural areas and disadvantaged backgrounds benefiting from this scheme. It is through education that we can change the lives of our people for the better. But education helps us to develop a new set of skills that can assist in addressing a number of challenges confronting our province,” Maape said.

Maape maintained the North West is beaming with men and women of high ethical standards and astuteness whose names must be celebrated in preserving their legacy and the heritage of the province.

“Sifora was a remarkable person and part of preserving his legacy is to make sure that we create socio-economic opportunities for the youth. This will ultimately alleviate challenges of poverty, unemployment, substance abuse and other social ills bedeviling our communities,” said Maape.

“It is my firm believe that the renaming of this scheme will re-ignite interest among the youth to study further but critically emulate Sifora’s principles which were confined within the realm of servitude and selflessness.”

Sifora – who was born in Mopyane Village in the then-Madikwe district in North West in 1914 – was one of the founding members of the ANCYL along with Oliver Thambo, Nelson Mandela, Anton Lembede and Walter Sisulu.

He was also a member of Seoposengwe, an official opposition party in then Bophuthatswana. He had an illustrious career as an academic, principal and teacher.

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