Thursday, 22 September 2016

South African Education Magazine

Jacob G Zuma Bursaries

Posted By: South African Education Magazineon: June 17, 2015In: Bursaries

This bursary fund was founded in 1995. Jacob G. Zuma (now President of South Africa) was at that time, part of the Executive Counsil within KwaZulu-Natal. He was awarded part of the RDP Discretionary fund in order to advance South Africa by opening a project of his desire. He decided upon the education system, as there is a great need for skilled labor.

The youth and children of South Africa are vulnerable, and many have been disadvantaged for years. With aid from this fund, that can now be corrected. Jacob Zuma believes that with this change, he is offering empowerment through sustainability.

The day-to-day operations will be dealt with by each individual office. They have aided more than 20 000 candidates, and are planning to make more of an impact as time passes. This fund provides full cost for students while studying at one of the accredited higher learning facilities within South Africa. These are many sponsors also aiding in the development of these young individuals.

They aim to close the gap that has formed, delivering professional graduates into the workforce. There are many opportunities that await the selected candidates, as they will also be exposed to internships, mentorships along with in-service training opportunities.

This bursary fund provides candidates the opportunity to rise from the ashes, to complete their education and succeed in life.

Jacob G Zuma Bursaries Available

Fields of study provided by this bursary scheme are all seen as scarce skills.

The fields available are as follow:

Science
Health Science
Law
Commerce
Engineering
Gas
Rail Engineering
Management
Renewable Energy
Nuclear Science
Maritime
Agriculture
Humanities Studies

Bursary Requirements

Candidates wishing to apply must provide the following, they are also required to adhere to all the stipulations of the bursary scheme. This program is to enable the youth of South Africa to reach not only their dreams, but moreover to become an essential part of society.

Candidate’s requirements are as follow:

Candidates must be South African citizens
Candidates must hold a valid South African ID Document
Candidates must be in or have successfully completed their Grade 12
Candidates must be in financial need
Candidates must be fluent in English (read, write & speak)
Must be dedicated to their studies

Candidates must provide the following:

Proof of parents / guardians income
Candidates ID document
Parents / guardians ID documentation
Grade 12 academic results
Curriculum Vitae

Candidates from a previously disadvantaged background, as well as those from rural areas will be looked at first. This bursary will provide full cost of tuition, prescribed books, accommodation and more to the selected candidates. Candidates must prove their willingness to learn and their desire to make a change.

All aspects of each candidate will be considered and bursaries will be awarded to talented, deserving candidates.

Bursary Application

Online applications for bursaries are not available, however candidates can contact the fund management for more detail, applications along with fields available, University placement and more. The Jacob G Zuma Bursary fund understands that each individual is different, each situation unique and will look at candidates backgrounds, abilities plus their motivation.

The fund can be contacted via any of the following means:

Per mail or personal:

The Jacob G Zuma Trust Fund

199 Smith Street (Cnr. Of Smith & Aliwal Street)

Suite 310

23^rd Floor

Embassy Building

Durban

4001

Contact Person:

CEO – Nokuthula Ngubane

031 – 332 6561

Ngubanenokuthula7@gmail.com

E-Mail:

admin@jacobzumatrust.org.za

Website:

www.jacobzumatrust.org.za

Alternatively candidates can contact the different offices within the following provinces.

Polokwane Office: Rev. Thiphu T. Nakana

076 670 7352

East London Office: Mr. Mzimkhulu Sili

083 765 6572

Ms. Musa Matshabanew

078 291 9559

Inkandla Office: Ms. Halala Sibiya

072 172 0598

Closing Date

There are no closing dates for these bursaries.

Candidates must contact the fund management for details pertaining current bursaries.

'SHUT THE FUCK UP' - Says Student Leader

Rhodes Must Fall activist tells older black South Africans to “shut the f**k up”

By Staff WriterSeptember 22, 2016194 Comments

Student activist Ntokozo Qwabe, who made headlines for allegedly reducing a waitress to tears in a Cape Town restaurant, has criticized the current ‘older’ ANC leadership amid the the higher education crisis.

Several universities around the country suspended activities after Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande on Monday announced the universities could increase fees up to a maximum of 8%.

Students are demanding free education at tertiary level.

In a post on social media site Facebook, Rhodes Scholar Ntokozo Qwabe said:

Older black people who want to silence us on the basis that they fought against apartheid need to shut the fuck up!!!

We are here because you failed us!

So please!

His post comes after ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said that if he were the minister of higher education, he would shut universities down for six months to teach students a lesson.

Blade Nzimande then called on parents need to play a bigger role in debates over university fees.

“Where are the parents in all of this? They are leaving big decisions in the hands of 19 and 20-year-old students,” he said during an interview on Pretoria-based Impact Radio.

He said government had started talking to parents about their children. They were the ones helping their children get through university.

“Students just want to demand and some of them are not even willing to listen and engage,” Nzimande said.

Read: I would shut down universities for 6 months: Mantashe

In another post, Qwabe continued to be critical of the ANC:

You see, what the ANC government is discovering is that history always catches up with you, and exposes your sneaky methods!

This ANC government thought it had one up on us when it made it a point to capture student politics through the ANCYL, SASKO & the broader PYA in post 1994 South Afrika (along with capturing workers’ unions, and other mass based movements).

It thought it could remove our agency as black students by tieing us to student loan obligations & sucking us early into the capitalist system through impossible student debts with its National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).

I mean, the word ‘scheme’ says it all! NSFAS is nothing but a debt chain for young black people masquerading as a liberatory framework designed to give the black child an education! NSFAS is designed to lock us within an unjust system – in the hope that it swallows us into eternal submission & passivity.

The students of South Afrika, however, no longer care! We are slowly rendering the ANC-captured student formations irrelevant and organising outside their ANC-sympathising logics! We are speaking not through our transient party political badges but through our material conditions as black people!

Nor are we concerned about our loan obligations anymore! If we are going to leave our universities with thousands of rands of debt against our names, then we might as well go down having secured a free decolonised education for black students that will come after us. We have absolutely nothing to lose anymore because our reality as black young people is that we are fucked either way!

The evolution of the student political landscape in our cowntry is beautiful to watch! It is liberating seeing what the ANC thought was a masterstroke in student capture crumble right before its eyes! It is beautiful seeing the ANC’s last meek attempts at holding onto this bygone capture fail dismally!

Students no longer need your petty PYA to organise themselves, and nor are they willing to delay the justice they deserve through its nonsensical ‘free education in our lifetime’. Students are klear that they want a free decolonised education NOW!

Qwabe also said that calls for zero percent increases were a ‘waste of tea’. He said that students must demand free education, or else they would need to come back and protest every year.

In all our campuses, we must ensure that ALL factions talking about fighting for a ‘0% fee increment’ are collapsed! If we have learnt anything from last year, it is that the discourse of ‘fee increments’ belongs not in our movement, but in the dustbins of history!

Protesting against ‘fee increments’ is not sustainable. If we protest merely for another ‘0% increment’ this year, we will have to do so again next year, and the year after. This doesn’t make sense. You see, contrary to popular belief, we are not protest cows who enjoy this thing of protesting.

The masses are klear that they are putting their bodies & futures on the line for a full revolution NOW (a free decolonised education!). Let’s not be distracted by toxic factions advocating for nonsensical half-a-loaf revolutions centred on ‘increments’ like last year!

Our energies should be directed towards a free, decolonised, black centred, Afrocentric education MANJE! That & nothing less!

Qwabe is the co-founder of Rhodes Must Fall In Oxford – “an organisation determined to decolonise the space, the curriculum, and the institutional memory at, and to fight inter-sectional oppression within, Oxford”.

He is a former law student at KwaZulu-Natal, and received the Rhodes Scholarship to further his studies at England’s Oxford University, in 2013.

SOURCE: Business Tech

Wednesday, 21 September 2016

EYEWITNESS NEWS

LEARNERS RECEIVE COUNSELLING AFTER TEEN'S SUICIDE

A 14-year-old learner in Cape Town allegedly committed suicide last week as a result of being bullied.

Picture: Thomas Holder/EWN

Natalie Malgas | 9 days ago

CAPE TOWN – Learners at a Plumstead high school are receiving trauma counselling following the alleged suicide of a learner.

A 14-year-old grade seven pupil allegedly committed suicide last week as a result of being bullied.

The boy was reportedly ridiculed by teachers who allegedly targeted him for being a slow learner.

Spokesperson for the Western Cape Education MEC Jessica Shelver.

"The department has sent counsellors to the school to debrief the learners, who are severely traumatised, and we are deeply saddened by the loss of such a young life. We can also confirm at this stage, that no incidents of bullying have been reported by the learner to the school or the school social worker."

(Edited by Masechaba Sefularo)

Monday, 19 September 2016

Kha Ri Gude 'Let Us Learn' Adult Literacy Programme Wins UNESCO Award

By Thandisizwe Mgudlwa

The Kha Ri Gude (Let Us Learn) Adult Literacy Programme (KGALP) which is an initiative of the Government of South Africa is the winner of the 2016 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) International Literacy Award.

Kha Ri Gude which means 'Let Us Learn' is Tshivenda, and now facilitated by the Department of Basic Education (DBE), was born in February 2008 after a 2006 study by the Ministerial Committee on Literacy established that about 9.6 million adults or 24% of the entire adult population aged over 15 years were functionally illiterate.

The study noted, "Of these, 4.7 million could not read or write (i.e. had never attended school) while 4.9 million were barely literate having dropped out of formal school before completing primary education.

The study also revealed, "The rate of adult illiteracy was significantly higher in non-white communities and among women, a pattern which partly reflected the negative effect of apartheid-era segregationist policies with regards to the provision of social services including education as well as socio-cultural practices which tend to promote the education of male over female children."

According to SA government the continued prevalence of adult illiteracy and its negative effect on development and social transformation prompted the government of South Africa to institute the Kha Ri KGALP in February 2008.

The 2016 UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy Kha Ri Gude Mass Literacy Campaign was handed over at a ceremony held in Paris on Thursday, 8 September 2016.

The Campaign further aims to equip adults above the age of 15 years to become literate and numerate in one of the 11 official languages.

And achieving this goal would enable South Africa to reach its UN: Education For All Commitment made at Dakar in 2000, namely that of halving the country's illiteracy rate by 2015.

With the UNESCO award it shows that South Africa is on the right track.

South Africa could have been miles ahead in its mission of educating all its people if a programme like KGALP was instituted immediately after liberation in 1994.

However, it can not be ignored that since the end of apartheid in 1994, in it's commitments to promote universal access to education and eradicate illiteracy among adults, the SA government had instituted a number of educational programmes like the Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) programme and the South African National Literacy Initiative (SANLI) in 2000.

With millions of black South Africans deprived of educational opportunities during the apartheid era, the SA government still faces tough battles in the transformation and development of South Africa with high rates of unemployment at over 26% in a country of 55 million people and inequalities threatening the stability of the 22 year old democracy.

Meanwhile, through the campaign recruited volunteers who make up the thousands of community-based coordinators, supervisors and educators are engaged to run the literacy courses every year since KGALP started.

The volunteers teach at community-based learning centres across the South Africa and at informal venues such as local churches, backyards and at times even bus-shelters.

Friday, 9 September 2016

MANAGEMENT NEWS

Heavy fine, jail time for those guilty of fronting

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa says companies that are found guilty of fronting can now be fined up to 10% of their annual turnover or individuals can be jailed for up to 10 years.

The Deputy President said this when he answered oral questions in the National Council of Provinces on Wednesday, 7 September 2016.

He said working together with the Presidential Broad-Based Black Economic Advisory Council, government decided to revise the policy to define and criminalise fronting after it was identified as a significant problem.

“Under the amended Black Economic Empowerment Act, the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Commission now has a legislative mandate to not only receive complaints, but to also investigate them and institute proceedings in court to restrain those who seek to breach the Act.

“The Act also introduces penalties for those entities and indeed persons found to be involved in fronting. If you are found to be involved in fronting and you are found guilty, a fine of up to 10% of an entity’s turn-over can be imposed, as well as 10 years in prison,” said the Deputy President.

A person convicted of such an offense would also suffer the restrain of not being able to transact with the state or with any organ of the state or public entity for a period of 10 years.

Since the implementation of one of the most important laws passed after 1994, the practice of fronting by some companies has been identified as a significant problem.

The deputy President said when the policy was initially crafted, it did not initially address fronting because it was envisaged that companies would embrace the spirit and the intent of the BBBEE Act and the need to be transformational at an economic level.

“However, through the monitoring of this policy, we have become aware that there are quite a number of cases of fronting that seek to circumvent the intent of this policy as well as the legislation.

“[The] BBBEE Act is one of the most important measures that the democratic government has put in place to address the economic injustices of the past alongside employment equity, land reform and preferential procurement,” he said.

Black economic empowerment has contributed significantly to ensuring the entry of millions of South Africans into the mainstream of the economy through the length and the breadth of the country.

Fronting, he said, is a “great and gross abuse” of a very important process of economic transformation.

“The practice undermines the very purpose for which BBBEE policies were established,” he said.

“Fronting in the end is not a victimless crime. The perpetrators of fronting practices often targets the vulnerable, the poor, the uninformed in our country. They deprive those most in need of opportunities that should rightly be theirs.”

The BBBEE Commission has begun its advocacy campaigns across the country to educate people about their rights and their obligations.

TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Tshimologong: Wits' new digital innovation hub

The University of the Witwatersrand and its partners in government, business and industry have officially launched the Wits Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.

Source: JCSE/Wits University

Setswana for 'new beginnings', Tshimologong is Johannesburg’s newest high-tech address in the inner-city district of Braamfontein, where the incubation of start-ups, the commercialisation of research and the development of high-level digital skills for students, working professionals and unemployed youths will take place.

Through Wits’ Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE), Tshimologong has been three years in the making and is a development that encourages tech innovation and collaboration between the University’s researchers and students and the private, public and civil society sectors in Johannesburg.

“We hope that transforming Braamfontein into Africa’s premier technology hub will inspire new talent, create jobs and lead to an economic renaissance,” says Barry Dwolatzky, Professor of Software Engineering in the Wits School of Electrical and Information Engineering and Director of JCSE.

Professor Barry Dwolatzky. Source: JCSE/Wits University.

Dwolatzky, who has been driving the Tshimologong initiative, envisions 24/7 activity in the new precinct, with events running day and night, as well as a hub where ideas are hatched and creativity has a space to breathe. “Tshimologong will be a start-up incubator, business accelerator and source of skills. The focus is on digital hardware, software and content. We are creating a hub space where people can get together, brainstorm and work on creative projects,” he says.

Developing a tech ecosystem

Programmers, designers, developers, entrepreneurs and start-ups will congregate in this half-a-city-block along Juta Street. It has open-plan co-working areas with broadband connectivity for ICT start-ups, meeting and refreshment zones, computer laboratories, training rooms, maker spaces, creative content development environments, and administrative and infrastructure support offices.

Drawing on models that have proved hugely successful in major cities around the world, Wits is driving the development of a successful technology ecosystem in the centre of an important African business and economic hub. It will complement the University’s suite of ICT-related offerings in research, courses and programmes in software engineering, data science, big data, digital business, and others.

“Wits aims to inspire the development of a new generation of digital technology experts, innovators and entrepreneurs and Tshimologong will provide an enabling space for our country's most creative young minds to develop new digital technologies that are crucial to South Africa’s economic growth and international competitiveness,” says Professor Adam Habib, Vice-Chancellor and Principal at Wits University.

Source: JCSE/Wits University.

Not only accessible or open to University researchers and students, the Precinct is membership-based and will provide a space for skills development in the software and digital technology sector, help address unemployment, and encourage the growth of new businesses. An important element of the Tshimologong Precinct is the recently launched IBM Research Lab, the first such facility anywhere in the world that is tightly integrated into an innovation hub.

An addition to the Tshimologong development is the establishment by Wits of The DIZ (Digital Innovation Zone), a space in Smit Street Braamfontein where creatives, innovators and programmers can come together and collaborate.

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