Mining News

Why we should nurture young talent in SA's mining industry

24 Jun 2016 |  

There is an ever-increasing demand for young graduates entering the mining services industry to have both the educational skills and the practical experience required for to build careers and work effectively in this continually expanding and complex sector.

Intern, Shirley Mbazima with UAS HR manager, Thamie Nyoni and operations manager, Sidney Sephoka

“We have a generation of young people leaving university with a vision for success and they are aware that real-time, hands-on experience is a must for their own personal growth and their career development plan,” explains Thamie Nyoni, HR officer for Umzamo Analytical Services (UAS). “However, through research and experience, we know that our local mining and mining services industry does not have enough experiential learning programmes to answer the pressing needs of the student, nor the demands of the industry.”

Nyoni believes that for South Africa’s mining sector to flourish and to remain attractive in terms of career choice, graduate and internship programmes should be increased and that these must be structured to create a rich learning environment with strong full-time employment opportunities at the forefront. He goes on to explain how local firms can use sustainable internships to ensure that more efficient and experienced professionals enter the mining sector with a strong career foundation and a bright future.

Establish a platform

Instituting a structured graduate internship programme will help attract the best and brightest young individuals to your company.

“Through internships, students develop work-based skills and their knowledge is enhanced through an experience that broadens their understanding of work as it applies to their area of study,” says Nyoni.

Recruit selectively

Nyoni advises recruiting interns who are self-driven and goal oriented. Interview them and select the best, which, in his opinion are those who show the willingness to learn.

“Interns bring new blood into an organisation, which means new ideas and innovativeness. Therefore as an organisation, we use that to our advantage by building up on their inexperience as opposed to hiring experienced individuals who may bring with them bad habits that may compromise our quality of service,” says Nyoni. As difficult and tedious a process as recruitment may be, Nyoni says that firms will see the fruits thereof in the long run.

Institute meaningful learning programmes

Sustainable internships make getting hold of real business world experience more accessible to more students. It is important that companies have set procedures and structures in place to ensure that interns are learning something meaningful such as job specific tasks and dealing with clients.

Recognise and reward hard work

Companies should make an effort to recognise and reward hard work among interns and entry-level graduates. Higher salaries come as an incentive to interns who are proactive, display proficiency across multiple disciplines and show a greater level of commitment to their work. “


Nyoni concludes by encouraging firms to try internship programmes. “If in the past, organisational complexity and the unknown have been a deterrent, you may find that interns can contribute significantly to your daily activities. It seems that more firms engage on an educational level by donating money for bursaries, but students need assistance after graduating as well – especially given the current job market.

“One is not enough without the other. Education and experience; there is a reason they are the first two titles on a resume.”

Education News

New book on student politics in Africa

24 Jun 2016 |  

In mid-June 2016, 'Student Politics in Africa: Representation and Activism', edited by Thierry M Luescher, Manja Klemencic, and James Otieno Jowi, was launched. The book has brought together the work and questions of eighteen scholars who are concerned with the issues of higher-education development, governance and student politics in Africa.

Taabo Mugume, Sam Masingi, and Dr Thierry Luescher at the launch of the book, Student Politics in Africa: Representation and Activism. Photo: Hatsu Mphatsoe

Dr Luescher is an assistant director in the Directorate of Institutional Research and Academic Planning (DIRAP) on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus.

The book focuses on the generation of new knowledge about student politics in Africa. Dr Luescher explained that the inspiration behind the book was based on the importance of how the voice of students is represented in higher education. Steady increase has been seen over the decades across Africa of students being involved in the decision-making structures of universities.

Dr Luescher says, “#FeesMustFall is an example of student activism in response to the problem where student leaders have not been heard about student funding, especially assistance to poor and middle income students. The book shows that the South African student movement is not unique, but actually part of a continent-wide – indeed a global – resurgence of student opposition against neo-liberal policies in higher education.”

Another question raised focused on ensuring a healthy relationship between student activism and political parties. It was explained as being a different process across different African countries. “While both go hand-in-hand, it is important to ensure that there is a regulation between the two so that student leaders do not become captive to parties and are indebted to them,” said Dr Luescher.

The book will serve as a great way for both student activists and the structures that exist in institutions to gain an understanding of each’s perspective and how to have a more amicable relationship.

Higher Education News

Applications for 2017 arts academy apprenticeship open

24 Jun 2016 |  

The Spier Arts Academy, which offers employment-based training in professional mosaic, is recruiting apprentices for its 2017 intake. This one-of-a-kind programme is geared towards equipping apprentices with the necessary skills, work experiences and industry connections to run their own creative enterprises after graduation.

© Witthaya Phonsawat – 123RF.com

Specialist training by expert tutors

Based in Cape Town’s creative hub, the three year, full-time apprenticeship offers a specialised mosaic art course. Experts in the field teach this specialist art form: former Masters Graduates from the renowned Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli in Italy head up the mosaic studio. The course includes tuition in drawing, art history, applied theory and business skills.

Because training is employment-based, apprentices gain industry experience working on projects - against production deadlines, collaborating with high calibre artists and learning professional art practices by association. Apprentices are also exposed to the local art and culture scene, via excursions to art studios, galleries, museums and the art library. The ultimate excursion takes the form of a cultural tour of Europe - awarded to third year apprentices who perform consistently well.

Under the direction of Yellowwoods Art, the Academy has produced architectural-scale mosaic artworks to critical acclaim; to date winning two BASA Awards and the BAMM Award in the UK. The Spier Arts Academy is also an official project of World Design Capital Cape Town 2014.

Application forms are available via http://spierartsacademy.co.za/mosaic-course/enrolment and can be returned by email, fax, post or hand delivered before 2 September 2016.

Primary & Secondary Education News

New partnership to support early creative education

27 Jun 2016 |  

The Cape Craft + Design Institute (CCDI), in partnership with Oklahoma A+ Schools US, and supported by Standard Bank and the Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDAT), has conceived a ground-breaking educational initiative, the Africa A+ Schools support network, which seeks to infuse creativity and innovation into schools by using the arts as a tool for teaching and learning.

Africa A+ offers professional development and ongoing on-site support that enables the member schools to think, plan and teach more creatively so that children get excited about learning and develop the skills that prepare them for lifelong success. Central to this approach is the integration of the arts, such as drama, dance, music, visual art, drawing and painting into the curriculum and learning process.

CCDI executive director, Erica Elk, says, “We have inherited a country with issues – unemployment, poverty, social inequality and injustice. The generation coming through our schooling system is not adequately prepared to deal with these complex issues. We have to nurture the next generations differently and create a new stream of individuals who are more creative, with greater capacity for innovation, critical thinking and problem-solving to become our future leaders and pioneers.”

Supporting entrepreneurship at early age

Africa A+ Schools support schools in realising the value of nurturing an imaginative and entrepreneurial mind set in children. An entrepreneur is a person who can see and create opportunities where others mostly only see a problem. Children need to be taught from an early age to develop their creativity and imagination so that they can become active citizens who contribute to solving problems and creating new value.

CCDI Early Childhood Development (ECD) project director, Anya Morris, says, “When we look ahead to our children’s future, we do not know what’s in store for them. We can, however, teach them key skills that will help them thrive in times of unpredictability and change.”

According to the Future of Jobs report published by the World Economic Forum in January 2016, an estimated 65% of children, entering primary school today, will ultimately end up working in completely new job types that do not yet exist. The top three skills predicted for 2020 are complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity. An estimated 36% of all jobs across all industries will require complex problem solving as a core skill.

Preschools in Cape Town

The Africa A+ Schools network is beginning at the preschool level because the first six years are the most sensitive and critical in human development. Africa A+ offers a quality arts-based learning approach that is aligned with the 0-4 years National Curriculum Framework, upholds the outcomes that underpin the Grade R CAPS curriculum, and works with the whole school in creating a teaching environment that supports each child’s ability to learn and be successful.

The first three Africa A+ member pre-schools in Cape Town are ABC Pre-primary in Lansdowne, iThemba in Capricorn, and Chameleon Campus in Sybrand Park. The three schools have received a week of professional development and are now being supported by the Africa A+ facilitators who are arts practitioners from a range of disciplines and ECD specialists.

Each support activity begins with the arts, which enables the educators to unlock their creativity through music, singing, drama and storytelling, creative movement and dance workshops. The educators and support staff then connect what they had experienced to teaching and learning in the classroom and how each activity supports the curriculum.

In an A+ schoolchildren learn language through drama and play-acting; develop their imagination through movement and storytelling, learn science through drama and visual arts; and are taught about patterning and mathematics through singing and creative movement.

Eight essential elements

Eight essentials underpin the A+ approach in the US and in South Africa:

• Arts – Valued as essential to the learning process, taught daily and included in planning.
• Curriculum – A+ is not a curriculum. The arts are integrated into the school curriculum and learning programmes.
• Enriched Assessment – Evaluates achievement by allowing children to demonstrate mastery through multiple means.
• Multiple learning pathways – Accommodates different learning styles and entry and levels, and provides opportunities for learning to be absorbed in a variety of ways because nobody is the same.
• Experiential learning – A concrete play-based, differentiated approach that allows children to learn best through doing, and supports the development of innovative thinking.
• Collaboration – Acknowledges and strengthens the role that parents, care-givers and communities play in their children’s development.
• Infrastructure – Organises space, time and resources to support transformative learning.
• Climate – Teachers and children are respected and the creative process is highly valued.

World-renowned educationalist, Sir Ken Robinson, who endorses the A+ approach to education, notes, “Creativity is now as important in education as literacy and should be treated as such.”
Watch his TED Talk ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’

E-learning News

Free online Wits courses launch in August

27 Jun 2016 |  

Wits University has announced that it has developed a suite of online course offerings that will be made available over the next three years to enhance access to higher education. These include massive open online courses (MOOCs) on the edX platform, short online courses and ultimately entire online degree programmes.

© maksym yemelyanov – 123RF.com

The first three MOOCs on the edX platform, WitsX, will be available within the next six months:

• System Dynamics for Health Sciences
• Research Methods: An Engineering Approach
• Results-Based Project Management: Monitoring and Evaluation

Course details

System Dynamics for Health Sciences: Learn to use system dynamics to understand complex medical issues and interventions. Wits Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering, David Rubin; Wits biomedical engineer and lecturer, Robyn Letts; and Professor Tak Igusa, Johns Hopkins University, teaches the MOOC. Launch date: 3 August 2016

Research Methods: An Engineering Approach: Learn how to successfully design your research and understand the underlying principles of postgraduate research from an engineering perspective. Wits Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Ivan Hofsajer teaches the MOOC. Launch date: 7 September 2016

Results-Based Project Management: Monitoring and Evaluation: Learn how to design and implement results-based, public sector programmes that optimise the use of resources. Wits School of Governance Lecturer and Senior Technical Advisor, Kieron Crawley teach this MOOC. Launch date: 5 October 2016

First in Africa

In the first phase, Wits has become the first university in Africa to offer MOOCs on edX, an online learning platform established by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2012.

Professor Andrew Crouch, deputy vice-chancellor: academic at Wits University, says, “There is no doubt that there is a dire need for more places at South African universities and for access to quality post-school training. Wits is proud to be the first African university on the edX platform, where we offer free online courses unique to South Africa.”

“Developing these three edX MOOCs has been an exciting collaboration between eLearning staff in the Centre for Learning, Teaching and Development (CLTD) and teams of academics. We envisage that the capacity and systems we have developed will inform and strengthen future institutional online course development and other blended learning initiatives,” adds associate Professor Christine Woods, Wits CLTD director and head of WitsX.

Professor Adam Habib, vice-chancellor and principal of Wits University, concludes, “This is a pioneering, innovative project that is unlocking new opportunities for South African universities. We will continue to develop course content to enable students from around the world to access our international expertise in fields ranging from the palaeosciences to infectious diseases and deep-level mining.”

Application process

• Log on to www.witsx.ac.za
• Select ‘learn more’ about one of Wits’ three available MOOCs
• Click ‘enrol now’
• Create an account
• Allocate 2 – 4 hours per week over six weeks (or as specified) to complete the free* course and benefit from online support from dedicated Wits experts

* A certificate of completion costs $49 (approximately R720 based on the current exchange rate).

Higher Education News

The value of intercultural fluency

15 Jun 2016 |  

Many students face their final year of studies, be it in matric or tertiary education. The question on many minds is what the South African job market holds for them when they enter it? Formal qualifications may be the cornerstone on which many successful careers are built for many employers of first-time candidates, but the soft skills required are just as important.

©Robert Churchill via 123RF

Recent research by the British Council surveyed employers working in public, private, and non-profit organisations in nine countries and found that employers recognise a clear business value in employing staff who can work effectively with individuals and organisations from cultural backgrounds different from their own. Conversely, organisations whose employees lack these intercultural skills are more exposed to risk.

Defining intercultural skills

The research, undertaken with IPSOS and Booz-Allen Hamilton, asked employers to define ‘intercultural’ skills. One of the key outcomes of the research was the belief that intercultural skills include the ability to understand different cultural contexts and viewpoints; demonstrating respect for others; and knowledge of a foreign language making the learners truly part of an international workforce.

Employers reported that employees with these skills are more likely to bring in new clients, work well in diverse teams, and positively support their organisation’s brand and reputation. Employees who lack intercultural skills leave their organisation susceptible to risks including loss of clients, damage to reputation, and conflict within teams.

“As a British and international organisation, we have seen a clear trend in the young people coming from the UK that we work with. Through time the confidence of young people in the UK has been eroded, and although many are very bright academically, their core soft skills, such as confidence, team-work, ability to work independently, self-initiative and the ability to overcome challenges, has been eroded,” explains Tyronne Bennett, Global Vision International (GVI) programme manager.

“In our search for national and international staff, we turned increasingly to the graduates of our programmes and moved to build an academic curriculum around our work-based learning programmes. Now, 58% of our staff are our own graduates, so it’s evident that we believe in the work we are doing to help young people acquire the skills they need, and we have seen many of our alumni go on to enjoy some great careers outside of GVI, with alumni working for organisations such as the World Wildlife Fund and Natural England.”

Intercultural fluency in the international job market

South African employers identified that their most pressing business challenge are finding qualified candidates with more than a quarter of organisations’ surveyed being concerned about a loss of clients and damage to brand and reputation because of cultural insensitivity and project mistakes. With this in mind, GVI has partnered with British Council to harness its 80-year track record to develop unique intercultural training, coaching and consultancy to corporate and business, education, government and non-government markets in South Africa with the first Intercultural Fluency course being offered in July in Cape Town.

One of the core skills that GVI’s offers its students is inter-cultural fluency. GVI is small UK social enterprise, which increasingly works internationally in partnership with British Council. “We need our staff to have an international outlook, to be engaged global citizens and to have the skills required to work internationally.” As the UK decides its future, be that within the EU or outside of it, internationalism is a huge topic and very relevant either way.

“As the world becomes increasingly inter-connected, those students equipped with international understanding and fluency, have a huge advantage over those that do not. We are seeing the same conversations around the world, in Far East, Asia, Africa, in the Middle East, and the US, the topics are the same, although framed somewhat differently.“ At a recent higher education conference we attended in the US, we saw many universities looking beyond their cities and states and national borders, following the routes taken by our partners, Universities such as Duke University and Stanford university, who have international programmes available to their students to help build their global engagement and competency.

GVI has hence developed a new range of programs which are academically robust, with clear learning outcomes, offering hands-on experience alongside local experts. This concept takes classroom curriculum learning outside and into the real world. “The programs are designed to challenge the students, to make them laugh and make them cry and force them to overcome both personal and professional challenges. We wish to equip and force the students to start thinking critically, and to come to their own conclusions and thoughts about the world, rather than purely believing what they are told."

TECHNOLOGY NEWS

SA Innovation Summit competitions call for entries

27 JUN 2016 | SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT |  PDF    

This year, the SA Innovation Summit is again giving inventors, innovators and established companies the opportunity to enter their prototype or product into the Inventors Garage and/or SA Innovation Legends Pitching Den competitions. This year also introduces the Match and Invest platform where entrepreneurs can pitch to investors directly in order to secure funding for their growing business.

©alphaspirit via 123RF

Pitching Den competition

This competition is open to high-growth startups, established companies and large corporates who are driving innovation on the African continent. “The Pitching Den was designed to recognise companies whose innovative tech-enabled solutions have the potential to make a significant positive impact on the growth of the continent,” says summit director, Audrey Verhaeghe. 

The overall winners will be announced at an award ceremony and stand a chance to win an overseas trip to meet international investors at Slush, a Finnish Innovation Conference supported by TEKES, PR exposure worth R200,000, the opportunity for IP consultation from Spoor & Fisher, matchingmaking and acceleration, and more. Through their respective social innovation platforms, the SAB Foundation will support the best social innovation with a prize worth R50,000. 

The Innovation Edge will be looking for opportunities to invest up to R1 million in ideas that have the potential to radically change the early life experiences of children, giving the best possible start in life right from the start. In addition to funding, the Innovation Edge could offer innovators with promising ideas the chance to attend a week-long incubation bootcamp offered by {code}bridge in Cape Town.

Entries to the Pitching Den are made online. Finalists will be invited to pitch their business to a panel of judges at the main conference.

Inventor’s Garage competition

This competition is open to anyone with a working prototype or product from proven concept to early commercialisation – whether a kitchen or garage inventor, a business or a seasoned innovator. The first round of judging will then take place and those selected as semi-finalists will be invited to showcase their products or prototypes at the SA Innovation Summit’s Market on the Edge. This offers exposure, advice, mentorship and possible deal-making. The second round of judging happens at the Market on the Edge with initial entries also received online.

Both competitions close on 30 July 2016.

Matchmaking and international exposure

“The goal of the Innovation Summit this year is innovation acceleration - scaling and impact for ideas that make a difference,” says Verhaeghe. “We are also collaborating with the Swiss Start-up Summit this year, which will most likely lead to the SA Innovation Summit receiving far greater media reach in Europe – meaning even more exposure for competition winners.” 

The SA Innovation Summit main conference takes place this year from 21-24 September at the Birchwood Hotel and OR Tambo Conference Centre in Johannesburg. 

Visit the website for more information.