THE University of Cape Town has announced an expanded scholarship programme for its new online school due to significant demand.

The online school, which commences classes in January 2022, has received more than 7,000 applications for the 2021 academic year, with scholarships now being offered to all high school-aged students, it said. 

UCT is running the online venture in collaboration with the Valenture Insitute, and is a CAPS-aligned curriculum that enables learners in grades 8 – 12 the opportunity to study at a monthly fee of R2,095.

The university said that learners will benefit from a supported self-discipline model, which allows them to pace their own learning while receiving one-on-one tutoring from expert teachers and support coaches whenever they need it.

Students will also be provided with a range of university and career preparation services and offerings.

In addition, the entire curriculum will be made available for free on an interactive online platform, the tertiary institution said. Users of this free content will be issued with a learner number to save their learning path and data, with unlimited logins permitted.

Privates and corporates 

While many of South Africa’s private schools have had to incorporate online teaching due to the Covid-19 pandemic, some are making a more permanent shift towards online schools.

JSE-listed independent education provider Curro opened its Curro Online offering in mid-June last year, and boasts more than 600 learners.

The group has also implemented additional e-learning solutions, the latest being Curro Choice, an e-learning offering that launched in February 2021 to broaden the range of subjects available to every Curro high school learner nationwide.

Looking ahead, the education group said it will continue to invest in the business, and make better use of its existing facilities as the education landscape changes.

Corporates have also shown eagerness to offer online learning facilities. At the end of October, mobile operator MTN launched its online school, offering a digital curriculum for grades R-12.

The online school, endorsed by the Department of Basic Education, will offer additional features like video lessons, assessments and extra-tuition lessons for grade 10 to 12 learners.

It will also focus on areas such as financial skills, entrepreneurship, arts and culture, and career guidance content, with particular attention on critical careers where there are skills shortages in South Africa.

The portal includes an introduction to the early childhood development curriculum and African storytelling, with over 2,000 stories, to equip children with good reading skills and improve confidence, enabling them to learn and read independently.

Ongoing shift 

Before the pandemic, the majority of institutions had less than half of their learning offering available online despite nearly 9 out of 10 universities having started implementing their digital strategy sometime before 2020, said Stewart Watts, vice president for EMEA, at online learning company D2L.

The crisis accelerated efforts to implement digital strategies in South Africa and as a result, there is now an increased number of courses available online for students, growing to 59%, he said.

“Change is starting to happen and it will probably be like a domino effect. The pandemic has forced a long-term shift in the way we think about EdTech and digital transformation, and it’s a good sign that higher education institutions are putting the student experience and learning outcomes at the centre of their strategies,” he added.

“More than 90% of respondents in South Africa say that institutions need to digitally transform to enable future growth, and improving digital skills within the academic community is also a top priority.”

• * Business Tech

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA|

JUST as the COVID-19 pandemic has tested our resolve as a nation and united us as a people, it has also illustrated once more that community-based and civil society organisations are the lifeblood of this country.
 
Since the earliest days of the pandemic, civil society organisations have played an essential role in supporting the public health response and sustaining livelihoods.
 
When government embarked on an extensive relief programme to support people in distress, community organisations partnered with us to make it happen. In many ways this was a true expression of the Thuma Mina spirit. Among other things, they helped to expand sheltering services for survivors of gender-based violence and kept community early childhood development centres running. There were many local community kitchens that sprung up to deal with hunger, often supported by local volunteers, restaurant owners, supermarkets and farmers.
 
And while meeting vital community needs, these organisations are also creating jobs. This is a strength that we want to build on through the new Social Employment Fund, which has just been launched as part of the second phase of the Presidential Employment Stimulus.
 
Through this fund, non-governmental, community-based and civil society organisations as well as social enterprises will be supported to create jobs while undertaking work that serves the common good and is not for profit.
 
This could include work that promotes food security, healthcare, education support, greening the environment, better public spaces, community safety and action against gender-based violence.
 
It is expected that the Social Employment Fund will create around 50,000 work opportunities. A total of R800 million has been allocated to the fund, which is being led by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition and managed by the Industrial Development Corporation.
 
Applications are now open for organisations to become the fund’s Strategic Implementing Partners. These partners must be able to create work for at least 1,000 participants, and will be expected to reach the employment target within the first quarter of implementation.
 
No less than 80% of the funds received needs to be spent on wages. This will ensure that the work supported by the Fund is labour intensive, provides meaningful experience and delivers real social value. Social employment is not about work alone, but about creating high-quality assets and services for communities.
 
Public employment programmes are particularly important when there are not enough jobs being created in the private sector. As our economy starts to recover from the effects of COVID-19, public employment fills a vital gap as companies get back on their feet and start hiring again.
 
Work opportunities under the Social Employment Fund will be part-time. This means more people can participate and participants can be employed and have a secure income for longer. This gives participants the time to develop the structure, skills and networks associated with participation in work.
 
Participants will perform an average of two days of work a week, and we want to encourage the private sector and the donor community to support these organisations, which will enable participants to be paid for more workdays a week.
 
As the International Labour Organization notes, work experience and skills acquired through public employment programmes can improve a person’s chances of being employed, becoming self-employed or starting their own business.
 
As with the other programmes of the Presidential Employment Stimulus, this fund will have a broader transformative impact by engaging unemployed people to carry out socially valuable activities such as educating our youngest citizens, greening our communities, and providing care and support to society’s most vulnerable.
 
As we strive to recover and rebuild in the aftermath of the pandemic, the Social Employment Fund will not only create more work opportunities and support more livelihoods, it will also be a critical driver of development and social upliftment.
 
Through this fund, and the many organisations it will support, government aims to mobilise the abundant energy and capabilities of the wider society to create work for the common good.

• * From the desk of the President

“We were taught that our history begins with colonisation, whereas our ancestors have contributed greatly to humanity,” said South African novelist, poet and playwright Professor Zakes Mda at a virtual book launch dialogue hosted by the University of Pretoria (UP).

Professor Mda recently published two books, Arola: A Journey into 10 Ancient African Civilisations and Wayfarers’ Hymns.

“Arola is difficult to categorise because it is so complicated,” Professor Mda said.

 “The main aim of the book is to teach others about African history. The research process was not difficult or intense because the materials I am writing about are all accessible; some of them are even accessible online.

“We are taught to believe that African history begins only with the coming of the white man, and we call it ‘African history’, when in fact it is the history of the white man in Africa rather than African history,” he added.

“So I was keen to delve back centuries ago to look at the empires that existed then. History of these empires exist in museums all over the world, but scholarship has ignored material that was right in front of their eyes.”

Professor Tawana Kupe, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of UP, added to the conversation by placing emphasis on the University’s intention to educate individuals about their history. “We were not just people who were discovered – we existed before,” he said. “Our intention at UP is to teach people origins and histories of knowledge because, as Prof Mda said, when you are taught something only begins here, you are only being taught one history’s form of knowledge. You are also taught that you are not creators of knowledge. Another thing we would like to do at UP is situate Africans as knowledge creators.”

Moving from Arola to Wayfarers’ Hymns, Dr Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang of UP’s Faculty of Humanities, who moderated the dialogue, described the novel as a “dramatic book about musical gangsters”.

“This book is centred on famo music, a popular genre of music in Lesotho,” Professor Mda said.

“The predominate instrument used in Lesotho is the accordion. Basothos [a collective term for native Sotho people] have turned the accordion and the concertina into Basotho traditional instruments, and have been creating famo music. This is a kind of music that is full of poetry, which is known as hymns, but these are circular hymns not religious hymns.”

Professor Mda went on to explain why he finds famo music and the culture surrounding it so interesting, and how this contributed to the conceptualisation of Wayfarers’ Hymns.

“I grew up in Lesotho, so I grew up listening to famo music. But I recently learned new things about this music. I learned that musicians also led gangs, so these musicians have evolved into gang leaders. Every weekend in Mafeteng, a city in Lesotho, there are funerals of musicians who have died in wars where they were fighting for territory and followers, but also fighting for [control of] illegal mining sites. The illegal mining that happens in Gauteng and Welkom is actually led by the musicians and leaders of these gangs. So I was fascinated to hear about this because I’ve never read about it, not even in newspapers.”

• Zakes Mda was born in Herschel in the Eastern Cape in 1948 and studied in South Africa, Lesotho and the United States. He wrote his first short story at the age of 15 and has since won major South African and British literary awards for his novels and plays. His writing has been translated into 20 languages. Mda is a professor of Creative Writing at Ohio University.

• * UP

SADTU has called on Eskom, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and all other relevant authorities to urgently find a reasonable mechanism to reduce the adverse impact of load-shedding on the current National Senior Certificate examinations.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Sadtu spokesperson Nomusa Cembi said the Department of Basic Education should urgently consult with Eskom and, based on such consultations, respond accordingly to minimise the disruptions which cause collective trauma to both learners and teachers.

Cembi added that the current load-shedding by Eskom is having an adverse impact on leaners and students at this critical time of the academic year.

“The current situation, regardless of the reasons or circumstances under which it happens, adversely affect the right of learners to education and has a direct adverse impact on their emotional and psychological being,” said Cembi.

“In many other instances learners will be exposed to safety and security risks particularly in those instances where alternative arrangements are made to enable them to study and prepare away from their homes.”

Sadtu has also called on the Department of Basic Education to put in place measures to ensure that learners and students who arrive late for their examinations and who require electricity supply to conduct examination are not prejudiced.

“We also call on the Department of Basic Education to afford all learners who have missed their examination as a result of load shedding to be afforded an opportunity to write those examinations during this examination session,” said Cembi.

“We further call on the government to investigate the allegations that the technician ignored the red light warning of low oil that led to the tripping three days before the elections. It is our considered view that this was a sabotage to support the call for the firing of the ESKOM board and those who are dealing with the rot that was characterising ESKOM.”

On Thursday, Eskom announced that Stage 2 would be implemented from midday and that power cuts would end on Friday at 5am.

Earlier this week, Eskom implemented Stage 4 and later Stage 3 load shedding to allow the utility to fully replenish its emergency generation reserves.

“While Eskom regrets the escalation in load shedding, it is necessary to ration the remaining emergency generation reserves, which have been utilised extensively this morning as we are not getting the reduction in demand as expected from the implementation of Stage 2 load shedding,“ it said at the time.

“It was anticipated that an additional seven units would have returned to service by Monday, and this has not materialised. Further, a generating unit at Arnot power station tripped, contributing to the shortages.”

• * Inside Education

UMALUSI believes rolling blackouts across South Africa due to load shedding may have a negative impact on the 2021 matric results.

Grade 12 pupils are in the process of writing National Senior Certificate exams and currently have to contend with stage 2 load shedding throughout this week, until 5am on Saturday.

This after Eskom implemented Stage 4 load shedding expected to last until Friday morning while Stage 2 blackouts will be implemented until five o’clock on Saturday morning.

Speaking to NewzroomAfrika, Umalusi CEO Mafu Rakometsi said load shedding would affect the quality of the exams as well as the results.

“Load shedding will negatively impact on the results. If students are not able to study adequately, then that is a problem,” said Rakometsi.

“I want to say that people are not equally sighted in terms of how they can see and immediately you have to write in a dark room. That situation is going to affect the students differently. [They] might struggle to go through the question papers and struggle to write because they are writing in a room that [isn’t] well lit.”

Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said 15% of matric exam centres in the province have been affected by blackouts.

Lesufi said while the department was prepared for the blackouts, if it continued, matric results could be badly affected.

“I can say 15% of our examination centres have been affected because it comes and goes at different times, we’ve got papers in the morning, we also have papers in the afternoon,” said Lesufi.

“So it has affected us but as I said we’ve incorporated it, but the sooner we get past this stage of load shedding the better because it will generally affect the outcome of the results.”

Public Servants Association (PSA) in KwaZulu-Natal has called on government to deal with the load shedding crisis.

The Department of Basic Education said on Monday it had contingency plans in place to ensure the latest bout of rolling blackouts won’t impact the matric exams.  

The department’s spokesperson Hope Mokgatlhe told Jacaranda FM news that there’s a plan B should load shedding disrupt exams.

“What we have said as the department and we always say so that the nation and the parents can be at ease, is that if it happens that learners cannot write because of a power outage, we have backup papers. We are talking about grade 12 here, in fact, all grades that are writing exams now- we have backup papers all the time,” said Mokgatle.

“So we want the nation and parents to know that as the department, our plan B is that if it happens that learners cannot write because of something we cannot control like a power outage, they will write at another time. We will have a backup paper so they will not be disadvantaged because as the department and as the government we work together knowing that there are things that we cannot really foresee.”

• * Inside Education

THE South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) says that a significant number of primary schools around the country remain on rotational timetables, with many schools also applying to keep a rotational timetable in place in 2022.

The reason for the rotation is a directive from Minister of Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma providing that social distancing measures in primary schools should be maintained at one meter, the commission said.

The SAHRC said it has also been made aware that most schools in the Western Cape (86%) have applied for rotational timetables for the 2022 academic year.

“The commission holds that rotational learning has a long-lasting negative impact on learning outcomes for children and, as the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19 (MAC) advice states, that the harms of learners attending school on a rotational basis – specifically the severe cognitive, nutritional, and psychosocial costs – exceed the benefits of reduced Covid-19 infections from smaller class sizes.

“The Cogta directive compromises the ability of primary schools – where the very foundation of learning takes place – to return to normal teaching and learning, notwithstanding reduced transmission and virus acquisition rates among teachers and learners in these schools as the majority of educators have been vaccinated and due to the low acquisition risk profile of primary school learners.”

The SAHRC said that it agrees with the MAC that all primary schools should open at full capacity.

The commission said it has now written to the basic education minister, the health minister, and the Cogta minister to call for an urgent meeting to discuss the termination of rotation in primary schools.

“This would essentially mean that the Cogta minister needs to amend her directive by deleting the 1-meter social distancing requirement in respect of primary schools.

“We will also discuss the return to normal schools for high schools, in view of the fact that the Department of Health has commenced with the Covid-19 vaccine rollout for 12-year-olds,” the commission said.

• * Business Tech

A 53-year-old principal from Mooifontein Primary School in Zastron, in the Free State, has succumbed to gunshot wounds.

Andile Ketso was shot by unknown suspects in Zastron.

Free State Department of Education said Ketso started the teaching profession in 1992 and was a Physical Science teacher at Lere-La-Thuto Secondary School before he was promoted as a principal.

The Free State Education Department has shared its condolences with the family members, learners and colleagues of a school principal who was gunned down at Zastron in the Free State.

Spokesperson, Howard Ndaba says the Department has lost a dedicated teacher who always strived for quality results.

Ndaba also condemned violence at schools, and called on all management teams, school governing bodies, and learners to strengthen school safety and build relationships with police.

“We want to take this opportunity to convey our sincere condolences to the family of Andile Ketso who’s a principal at Mooifontein Farm school in Zastron. Mr Ketso was gunned down and the suspects and motive for his killing are still unknown. He was a very dedicated educator who’s teaching physical science, he joined the department in 1992,” says Ndaba.

He further added that Ketso was a very dedicated principal and educator who joined the Education Department in 1992 as a junior teacher.

Last month, Dr Granville Whittle, deputy director-general at the basic education department, told parliament the national school safety framework remained their primary strategic response to school violence.

“It is based on a social ecological systems model, which locates the school within its broader community. It relies on collaboration and partnership. South Africa joined the Safe to Learn global campaign to end violence in schools, in partnership with Unesco and Unicef,” he said.

The education department said its partnership with the departments of justice and social development ensured improved vetting of teachers and other staff, and the establishment of a national school safety steering committee with related government departments and social partners to better coordinate safety interventions.

Whittle further said that in collaboration the department has also embarked on interventions aimed at addressing hotspots for most at risk schools.

Some of the measures include improving the built environment, such as considering learner safety when planning school infrastructure, as well as closure of taverns and liquor outlets in close proximity to schools, in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry, SAPS and South African Local Government Association (SALGA).

The measures also include search and seizures in partnership with SA Police Service (SAPS) and the provision of security guards to schools at risk.

The SAPS said school based crime prevention would be intensified and that the collaborative agreement with DBE would be revised in order to make it more effective.