PATRICK WADULA|

SCHOOLING has evolved across the world with the advent of the Covid19 pandemic which has changed the way teachers engage learners with their teaching methods.

When the President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa announced the state of disaster and effectively put the country under lockdown in March 2020, not only were businesses and other forms of economic and social activity halted but the education system came to a grinding stop.

Over the last 18 months, these schools have either been temporarily closed during periods of intensified lockdowns or, at best, operating on a limited rotational schedule where children have only attended schools for a few days a week.

However, this could not continue forever, as the world begun looking for alternatives of getting their economies back on track while under the lockdown and observing the Covid 19 regulations.

The global education system could not be left behind during this period as, the pandemic also helped the education sector indirectly to increase its pace in introducing the fourth industrial revolution or 4IR. Innovation and 4IR technologies in South Africa’s education sector.

Pupils and students needed to adjust and adapt to change by learning remotely using online education platforms created for schools. 

The teachers and lecturers equally had to upskill to digital teaching methods to remain relevant in the education sector.

In response to the emerging global phenomenon of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), which prepares the world for the new body of knowledge, The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has approved the introduction of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) for Coding and Robotics for Grades R-9.

The new curriculum necessitates the training of subject specialists, co-ordinators, subject advisors, and teachers. In view of the Covid-19 pandemic and compliance with its regulations, the DBE the training is conducted virtually (online).

Unfortunately, digital learning has not grown substantially in South Africa due to several challenges that include limited access to the Internet, especially in rural communities, high data prices, lack of adequate bandwidth and storage (in terms of cloud computing).

Limited access to laptops, computers or tablets, and inadequate infrastructure required for using these devices (e.g., electricity loadshedding) and training in the use of computers have also been an impediment for learners to improve their learning skills through digital platforms.

To ensure digital learning becomes a way of life for learners, the MTN SA Foundation spends approximately R10 million annually on establishing and running states of the art multimedia centres at more than 400 urban schools and another 50 targeted at learners with special needs. Some of these multimedia centres can also be found at colleges, universities and TVET Colleges. 

To increase the use of digital platforms for learning purposes, MTN SA Foundation partnered with Siyavula, to introduce the Siyavula’s annual #1MillionMaths challenge five years ago

Explaining the challenge, MTN SA Foundation Manager for Special Programmes Judith Maluleka says the competition, challenges all high school learners to complete at least one million maths and science questions on the Siyavula online platform in one month.

In the recently released Trends in International Mathematics and Science 2019 Study (TIMMS), South Africa ranks consistently low in mathematics and science. A total of 20,829 pupils across 519 schools were assessed, with tests conducted according to curriculum-based content and cognitive thinking.

Maluleka says the #1MillionMaths challenge helps learners not only to understand maths and science, but also improve their digital learning skills.

“Until now, the #1MillionMaths challenge had focused only on learners competing individually. This year teachers are invited to enter the competition; learners can also compete as an entire grade or school.

Schools will compete against one another, for the chance to be crowned South Africa’s Maths or Science School Champion for 2021.

Maluleke says the idea is to bring the power of technology and a connected life to those most in need. This is being done by bringing Maths and Physical Science learning and support to schools across the country in both urban and rural areas to create the opportunity for students to be future-fit.  

For the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic started, all public primary schools in South Africa fully reopened on 2 August 2021.

The move to reopen normal physical schooling doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning e-learning. There should be a way of integrating both methods of learning in the new schooling system.

Face to face interaction between learners is also important for shared learning experience between learners and a need to interact with their own age-mates in the same grade and school, as opposed to constantly be at home with the family.

* Inside Education

ZIMBABWE resumed in-classroom teaching this week, but thousands of teachers are protesting salaries that are below the poverty level and a lack of personal protective equipment against COVID-19. 

Zimbabwe’s Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union says it will only call off the strike when the government addresses the concerns.

“And there is negligence on the part of the authorit(ies) to make sure that there is enough safety to guarantee our teachers and learners from the pandemic,” said Robson Chere, secretary general of the teachers union.

“They should have been providing adequate water supply, enough PPEs. Arcturus Primary School, which is down here, hasn’t even water. It’s messy. It’s a disaster. We are sitting on a time bomb for both learners and teachers.” 

Authorities did not allow VOA into Arcturus Primary School, which is about 40 kilometers east of Harare. 

Some students around Harare have been going to school since Monday to try to learn among themselves, as there are no teachers. 

The teachers union warns that classrooms may turn into COVID-19 superspreaders. But Taungana Ndoro, director of communications and advocacy at Zimbabwe’s Education Ministry, says the government has been working to ensure classrooms are safe. 

“We have been putting in new infrastructure to ensure that we decongest the existing infrastructure to ensure that there is social and physical distancing for the prevention and management of COVID-19,” Ndoro said.

“We have also made sure that our schools have adequate supplies of sanitizers and water. So, it is looking good. We have got single-seated desks now, instead of two- or three-seated desks. This is to encourage social distancing. We do not have bunk beds anymore in our boarding schools. We have got single beds and spacing of at least one-and-half to two meters. So, it is encouraging.” 

UNICEF Zimbabwe has been helping students and the government during the COVID-19 lockdown.

“The two-key approaches were, one: How we can support the loss of learning as a result of school closure. The second one was: How to keep the school safe and ready for children to return to school,” said Niki Abrishamian, UNICEF Zimbabwe’s education manager. “We managed to produce more than 1,600 radio lessons as part of alternative learning approaches. We had to look at how to take learning to the children, especially when they were at home and did not have access to schooling.” 

Zimbabwe’s teachers hope such organizations can assist the government and supply the resources they require — adequate PPEs against COVID-19 and salaries that allow them to live above the poverty line. 

Zimbabwe currently has 124,773 confirmed coronavirus infections and 4,419 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the global outbreak. 

* VOANEWS

THE Department of Basic Education says scores of young girls between the ages of 10 and 19 years old are infected with HIV every week.

This was revealed during the department’s state of Teenage pregnancy and Comprehensive Sexuality report presented to the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education on Tuesday.

The report has revealed that teenage pregnancy increased by 30% higher than the annual average between April 2020 and March 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Deputy director-general Dr Granville Whittle said poverty, rape, gaps in the Comprehensive Sexuality Education, and school dropouts are among the culprits. 

“Girls are four times more likely to be impacted or affected by HIV compared to boys. 46% of sexual abuse complaints in South Africa are children, 15.1% of all the girls experience rape, sexual harassment, verbal abuse or bullying in schools.”

In the first quarter of 2021, just over 35 000 pregnancies were recorded among young girls aged between 15 and 19 years old. 

1053 pregnancies were recorded among children aged between 10 and 14 years old.

These numbers were increased by the countrywide lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. 

Whittle told Parliament that the numbers are alarming and need immediate action and solutions. 

He said most of these pregnancies and HIV rates are due to statutory rape.

“We want to work with schools and school principals to ensure that the cases are reported, investigated and the perpetrators are brought to book. Often these girls are raped by older men and that’s why they fall pregnant,” said Whittle.

The department says keeping girls in school has proven to be one of the tools to prevent teen pregnancy and educate adolescent girls on sex, sexuality, and HIV. 

Alongside the Department of Health and Social Development, DBE has submitted an integrated school health policy to the cabinet for approval. 

This policy will according to DBE assist in the prevention and management of learner pregnancy in schools.

* Agencies

THE Department of Basic Education has called on previous National Teaching Awards (NTA) recipients to share in celebrating the 21st edition of the awards since inception in the year 2000. 

In celebrating this major milestone, the DBE seeks to connect with winners of the NTA from the first ceremony in the year 2000 to 2010.

“The Department of Basic Education calls on all previous winners of the National Teaching Awards in the period listed above to come forward to share in the celebrations.

“The 21st edition of the NTA will be conducted in a period where the country is confronted with a major pandemic of COVID-19, which has paralysed the schooling system in many different ways,” the department said.

The department said it is for this reason that it is honouring all educators who have represented the sector with outstanding excellence throughout the years.

The NTAs were established to recognise, celebrate and acknowledge the strides made by teachers to ensure that learners are supported in order to progress from grade to grade. They aim to motivate teachers to continue the selfless endeavours they make for the benefit of the country.

Previous winners can send a photo of themselves, along with their certificate and share their journey in education since winning the award via email on: awardsnta@dbe.gov.za by 20 September 2021. – SAnews.gov.za 

SYMEN A. BROUWERS|

SCHOOL is a key component of our societies. In school, children learn to read and write. And being able to read is meant to help people of all ages to think at a higher level and make their lives better.

It is not surprising that literacy is thus an important goal for global development agencies. The “multiplier effect” of literacy is believed to empower people, enabling them to participate in society and improve their livelihoods.

The truth is, learning basic skills such as solving arithmetic problems at school doesn’t necessarily make you good at solving such problems in everyday life. A classic study in Nigeria, for example, looked at what children learn from running errands. Another study in Côte d’Ivoire examined how well children from farming (Baoule) or merchant (Dioula) communities solved mathematical problems. And a Brazilian study investigated how young candy sellers on the streets solved arithmetical and ratio problems. If children can learn useful skills outside school, which are useful for having a job and making a living, what is the value of going to school and learning to read and write?

Some scholars say literacy goes further than the skills you learn through everyday experiences and contexts. It allows you to think across contexts – to build cognitive skills. But others say school itself is just a context, too, and it doesn’t take your thinking any further.

My study in India was able to cast some light on this apparent dichotomy. I found that the effect of school learning builds up over time – starting slowly with small skills related to technical features of reading and writing, but gradually having more and more other skills build on it.

The effect of everyday experiences on skills doesn’t build up in the same way – children may learn broad operations such as object permanence and the conservation of fluid early on, but once they mastered those, their learning levelled off gradually – the complete opposite pattern.

The research

In my study, I was able to conduct a kind of experiment to test how schooling affects cognitive performance. In northeast India, where I did the study, years of schooling and years of life experience aren’t as closely related, and could thus be studied separately, but at the same time.

In affluent countries this is not possible because once children have enrolled, an increase in years of schooling is always the same as the years you got older. In many developing countries, it is only children of richer families that go to school. In the specific rural region in India where I conducted the study, two children of the same age might have had different levels of schooling. And in one grade, there might be children of different ages. This situation made it possible to see what effect schooling had.

Thus, what I did was study the same children before and after three years of schooling, 181 of them. They were enrolled in school at any age between 6 and 9 years (on the first point of assessment) and came from similar socioeconomic environments. The skills I tested were in reasoning, vocabulary, shapes, memory, and arithmetic.

One finding that immediately stood out was that the children performed much better on tests done in a story-based format, even though the mathematical operations themselves were the same as tasks central to schooling (like, what is 3 + 4?).

The main finding was that the effects of schooling started slowly but accelerated, while effects of chronological age started fast but died down over time. These two distinct patterns show that learning in school and through everyday life must be very different. The effect of schooling became bigger with more years of education and only starts to make a real difference with more years in school.

Literacy is essential for the cognitive development of children, but to really bring out its effect it is important to persist in teaching over time. At school, children learn small cognitive skills, each with a limited range, one at a time. They provide scaffolds on which children in school can gradually build with more and more ease, a larger repertoire of small skills that are relevant across a range of problems and tasks.

Key to successful schooling and proficient reading and writing skills is being able to build on early achievement. Teachers should offer enough tasks and challenges and make them gradually more difficult and complex. In this way, communities benefit from keeping children in school longer.

A minimal amount of schooling will not bring the effects development agents look for. Instead, persistence in learning to read and write is essential to achieve the desired impact: branching out across contexts and being able to take charge and create solutions.

–  The Conversation

THE Department of Basic Education has developed a three-year recovery plan to help make up for teaching time lost during the Covid-19 pandemic, says minister Angie Motshekga.

Responding in a written parliamentary Q&A this week, Motshekga said that the Recovery Annual Teaching Plan accounts for each subject in each grade and will help guide teachers to focus on key concepts, content, and skills to be taught per subject over the next three year period.

“The curriculum statement for each grade and subject was evaluated by a panel of curriculum content experts, and the content was reduced to ensure that only the core concepts, knowledge and skills are taught for each subject and grade.

“It is anticipated that over the next three years, learners would have covered the core content in the subject, and the curriculum statement, post the three year period, would be reviewed to take learners forward in their learning process,” she said.

Motshekga said that the three-year recovery period is tentative at this stage and could be extended if necessary based on the findings from the continuous research, monitoring and support provided by the department to schools.

Teachers will have to use their own judgement

While the department has developed guidelines for fundamental content that teachers must prioritise, Motshekga said that the variation in teaching time across the schools means that there is now a higher dependence on teachers using their own professional judgment.

“Teachers are provided with a planner and tracker, which lists the reduced content to be covered in the week, and teachers must record coverage to ensure that every teacher has a record of curriculum coverage, per grade, which will be transferred to the next teacher,” she said.

“This will ensure continuity from one grade to the next,” she said.

Motshekga said that plans to reduce the impact of future disruptions must be agile and should consider schools on an individual basis.

“In accommodating the various school contexts, much is left to the teacher’s professional judgment and expertise.

“Hence, teacher development, training and support is now more crucial capacitating the teacher to manage his/her classroom context.”

A new strategy and different weightings

Motshekga said that the plan also incorporates ‘assessment for learning’  as a teaching strategy.

“This implies that the teacher not only assesses at the end of the learning process to make a judgment on the learning gains but assess the learner on a continuous basis during the learning process to support the learning process.”

Assessment weightings in Grades 4-11 have also been adjusted to ensure optimal time for teaching and learning, she said.

“The key tenet of the strategy is to reduce the curriculum to focus on key concepts, skills and knowledge that are essential for deeper learning and the development of cognitive skills that will promote creative thinking, problem-solving and effective communication.”

MPUMALANGA, KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape have embarked on COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in schools in an attempt to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. 

Various schools in these provinces have been directed to cooperate with the Department of Health regarding student vaccinations and provide space and necessary facilities available for the purpose.

Department of Basic Education said last week that vaccination programme has brought life back to normal in many schools around the country.

All parents’ organisations, teacher unions and school governing bodies have been taken into confidence so that the risk of educational disruption could be minimized.

All learners 18 years and above will be vaccinated in their respective schools to ensure that teaching and learning are not disrupted.

While announcing the outcomes of the ANC NEC lekgotla on Monday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said everyone must be more proactive to assist government in consistently highlighting the safety of the vaccine and its efficacy in protecting people against serious illness and death.

“About 25 million doses of the J&J vaccine was completed at the Aspen plant in the E Cape, and more than half of these have been released in the market. Production is now mainly for use in SA and the rest of Africa,” said Ramaphosa.

“BIOVAC received a commitment from Pfizer/Biontech to produce their vaccine in SA, scaling up over a period to 100m doses and the SA firm is now getting ready to retool for this opportunity.”

The Northern Cape Department of Education has raised concern about the amount of learning losses as new COVID-19 cases continue to increase in the province’s schools.

At least 1 272 cases of the virus have been reported since 23 August to date with several schools closed and learning delayed.

In a statement, the department said the rising infections are compromising the learners’ ability to perform at a high level.

“This continues to take a devastating toll on the academic performance of learners and their preparedness for the examinations. It’s clear that the academic recovery will take much longer than expected, whilst the current reality is placing a massive strain on the entire education sector.

“The department is doing all that we can to support educators and learners across all grades during these difficult times,” the statement said.

The department said 410 new cases have been reported.

“The new COVID-19 infections include 28 educators, 367 learners and 15 support staff at various schools. We currently have seven schools which are closed in the province to allow for contact tracing and the disinfection of school premises,” the statement said.

KwaZulu-Natal has been ranked as the province with the third highest number of confirmed cases of Covid-19.

Schools in Kwa-Zulu Natal have seen an increase in the number of Covid-19 infections among teachers, support staff and students. The province has recorded more than 1100 reported cases in 350 schools in the past 3 weeks.

KZN Premier Sihle Zikalala announced that the department of health in the province will look to ramp up its vaccination program.

So far the province has inoculated more than 2 million people.

He said that the province is aiming to vaccinate around 60 000 people per day as this will help the province reach its goal of vaccinating 7.2 million people by March 2022.

Meanwhile, learners in Mpumalanga who could not register using the above information will be allowed to register and be vaccinated on-site.

Learners are expected to produce their identity documents or birth certificate at vaccination sites.

The following category of personnel is excluded from the mass vaccination process, however:
• Any person who tested positive with Covid-19; they can only be vaccinated 30 days after quarantine or isolation.
• Any person that vaccinated against flu in the preceding 14 days.
• Any person that was vaccinated using another vaccine (Pfizer or J&J under Sisonke) should not be revaccinated.

A vaccination date for special schools will be communicated to school principals once all logistics have been finalised.

The Mpumalanga MEC for education, Bonakele Majuba, visited Lethabong Secondary School, KwaMhlanga, Thembisile Hani Local Municipality, on Monday to monitor the programme.

* Inside Education

FOR most people, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused stress and worry. But it made Suhaan Singh think and won him a medal at the provincial KwaZulu-Natal Eskom Expo for Young Scientists and a visit to the Regeneron ISEF, the largest international science fair, held in the USA in May 2021.

Suhaan was a pupil at St Dominic’s Academy in Newcastle when he entered his research project for the Eskom Expo in 2020. He used a Lego kit to modify a robot to automate screening and sanitising for COVID-19.

This year’s provincial KwaZulu-Natal Eskom Expo awards ceremony was held over the weekend.

The pandemic did not stop last year’s entries from school pupils for the country’s oldest and most prestigious science fair from producing excellent work. Indications are that the same will be true this year as 131 entries have been received, covering a wide spectrum of interests, ranging from engineering and energy to social sciences. 

The majority of entries were from female pupils. Young scientists can enter their investigations into one of thirteen categories.

The KZN provincial co-ordinator of Eskom Expo, Nalini Dookie, explained, “A love for science, engineering and mathematics can be cultivated. Children are naturally competitive and the Eskom Expo leverages this to inspire them.”

The Eskom Expo is part of a broader Eskom strategy of skills development, investing in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and innovation (STEMI). Eskom is committed to driving skills development in these fields, and relishes the opportunity of unearthing promising learners and putting them on a path to academic success and careers that contribute to South Africa’s developmental needs.

The KZN awards ceremony is one of nine such provincial events leading into the final Eskom Expo for Young Scientists International Science Fair (ISF), which will be held on October 8. The ISF will include participants from 35 regions in South Africa as well as from several other African countries.

Despite the challenges experienced due to the pandemic and the consequent interruptions to regular schooling, Eskom has managed to continue supporting the STEMI programme through the Eskom Expo for Young Scientists. It had to do this through innovative ways, such as virtual science clubs, virtual workshops for learners and teachers, science day camps, and more.

Participation in the Eskom Expo science fair not only boosts skills development but for winners has direct benefits too- prestigious awards, bursaries, participation in international science fairs, self-development and career-pathing.

Certainly, Suhaan’s use of the pandemic as a starting point for a research project put him on an international stage.

* North Coast Sun

TIM DALE LACE|

GORDON Matheson may not be a big name in South African cricket coaching circles, but he has a massive job on his hands. The 39-year-old has to turn Mpumalanga into a competitive unit in the new structure of South African domestic cricket.

“I know the challenges at hand as a smaller union,” he said. Matheson has faced tougher obstacles in his coaching career, which is why he is embracing the job at hand: to build a formidable side with fewer resources and talent than other provinces.

“I tried to play the game but my body broke down when I was around 21, with several injuries including a serious ACL [anterior cruciate ligament] injury. I took up coaching straight after school and when the injuries happened, it was a real chance for me to get serious about it as a proper job. I never wanted a 9 to 5 job, so throwing balls and being outside was a lot more of what I wanted.”

Matheson coached for more than 10 years at the grassroot level with a focus on schools cricket. He also spent time at the Jimmy Cook Cricket Academy at King Edward (KES VII) high school in Houghton, Johannesburg. But he still felt something was missing from his coaching arsenal, something he refers to as “getting into the player upstairs”.

“My philosophy as coach has always been about building a relationship before the cover drive, so this was an area I needed to improve on. I knew I had to add another string to my bow, so to speak. So, 10 years after everyone else had gone to university, I went and got my degree in sports psychology, something I knew I needed if I was going to take this coaching job seriously,” said Matheson.

“I went back to work, as head coach of KES VII, where among others, I coached Bryce Parsons and Tony de Zorzi. Tony was probably the best school cricket captain that I have ever seen. He understood the game better than anyone else I came across.”

De Zorzi captained South Africa’s Under-19 team in 2016. In February, he was announced as the Cobras’ captain for the CSA T20 Challenge. Matheson clearly has an eye for talent.

He had become restless in Johannesburg, tired of the rat race and unable to see how he was going to get a coaching job at a higher level. “I had been trying to get into Gauteng structures for quite a long time and worked at various schools and regional sides, but my career was not progressing. It was stagnating, in fact, and I wasn’t getting chances to better challenge myself. I started to look for avenues where I could coach at a higher level and once the restructuring happened, that created a space for me. Mpumalanga and Limpopo were to get a team, so maybe I could get a crack there.

“One year, when I was at Uplands School with the Jimmy Cook Academy, an individual with the school called Hendrik Joubert asked me to start up an academy there, and with my situation at Gauteng it seemed the perfect opportunity. And so from 2018, I started what is now Moose Academy at Uplands, which I hope will be here long after I am gone.”

Uplands is a private school in White River, Mpumalanga, that operates under the auspices of the Anglican Church. The school offers education to boys and girls from grades 0 to 12, with boarding from grade 4 upwards.

“This was a perfect base for me as I started working with many of the Mpumalanga players on a consultancy basis, which was a great help for when I got the full-time head coach job earlier this year,” Matheson said.

“Getting the job, as you will know, has meant we [the new coaches] have had many challenges, none more so than that the squads were decided before the coaches. Therefore we have, to a certain degree, had to make do with what we have. I am not complaining, as I am happy with this squad, but just pointing out it’s not ideal.”

Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) new domestic structure saw the organisation move from the six-franchise setup to two divisions made up of 15 first-class teams. Division one has Boland, Eastern Province, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal Coastal, North West, Northerns and Western Province. Matheson’s Mpumalanga is in division two with South Western Districts, Easterns, KwaZulu-Natal Inland, Border, Limpopo and Northern Cape.

“Going back to provinces is a good thing, especially for teams like ourselves and Limpopo with the pathways from school, club, academy to province, which are crucial for us. Previously, the smaller provinces would lose whatever talent they had to the bigger union, primarily because they were playing franchise cricket. I also like the promotion-relegation setup, as we believe we can compete. It is also why the county cricket competition is so strong,” said Matheson.

“We as a team know we need to be competitive rather than being seen as an outing for opposition batters to fill their boots. That is undoubtedly our focus for this coming season and beyond. The talent is definitely there.”

But does Mpumalanga have enough of a talent pool to fall back on should injuries happen? “At the moment, very truthfully, we don’t have the talent needed to compete and that is a problem, no doubt about it. But we do have a nice mix of youngsters who are home-grown and maybe a year or two down the line they will be ready.”

This is partly why CSA is only bringing in the promotion-relegation component in the third season. “We need to work much harder and smarter with the schools and academies to make it work. CSA is not using CricViz, Opta, or any of the main stats-based companies, so we as a country are miles behind. It is frustrating, especially as a smaller union, to not have access to the best stats. Cricket Clinic [which we use is] untested. We now have head coaches who should be out on the field but are having to spend hours trying to assemble stats on this archaic application.”

In assembling their squads, fellow division-two sides South Western Districts and KwaZulu-Natal Inland have roped in Kolpak players Leus du Plooy and Cameron Delport respectively. Matheson took a different approach.

“I am not anti-Kolpak, but I just see things a different way and my players see it the same. Why not reward those players who have stayed the course over the last few years and in some quarters have been forgotten by the rest of the country? I think we have enough talent in the country, especially when it comes to transformation, with the likes of Wandile Makwetu and Keegan Petersen playing at a high level.”

The Social Justice and Nation Building hearings have highlighted the extent of the racism and belittling Black players have experienced in the national team setup. With some quarters viewing the need to transform the Proteas in line with the country’s demographics, Matheson views it as a duty of every coach in the country.

“Transformation is something I believe in, and when you coach in SA you [have to] understand what CSA is trying to do on this front, it is part of our cricket,” he said.

“I have been into townships as a young coach and I have seen the challenges first-hand for those players of colour. I knew the risks I was taking with my own car at the time, but we need to get to the players. Having to use three taxis to get to the ground is just not on. He hasn’t eaten, or showered. He has had a massive undertaking to get to the ground, exhausted physically and mentally, and we expect him to perform? No parents or support staff to watch him and we are surprised when he fails. We are putting too much pressure on the player.

“In Mpumalanga, our townships are extremely rural when compared to Joburg and Cape Town, a bowling machine is as foreign to them as the sport. The language barrier is a real challenge. Having someone come with us [usually a player] who can translate is so important.”

Matheson has worked hard to address these challenges, and if Mpumalanga can be competitive, it could well be a shining light for South African cricket as it moves into a new and hopefully bright venture.

Source: New Frame

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA|

OVER the course of time, public servants in our country have come to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. We have become too used to stories of civil servants involved in maladministration, embezzlement, corruption and other forms of conduct that betray the values of the public service.
 
While much is made of those that are errant and unprincipled, the vast majority of public servants understand the weight of responsibility their positions entail, and discharge their duties faithfully.
 
We have set ourselves the challenge of building a capable, ethical state. We remain firmly on course towards professionalising the public service and transforming it into a group of men and women who are able and committed to serving our people and their interests.
 
During this Public Service Month, we pay tribute to the many public servants who continue to make a positive difference in our country every day, and whose actions and performance embodies the principle of Batho Pele, of ‘putting people first’.
 
Our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that we do have capable and committed public servants who diligently serve the people of South Africa.
 
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, civil servants have displayed courage and resilience in discharging their duties, often under the most difficult of circumstances. Despite the disruptions caused by the pandemic, they have kept the wheels of our country turning and have ensured that service delivery continued.
 
Frontline health personnel have made sure that the ill are attended to. Members of the SAPS have continued to serve and protect our communities. Teachers have continued to care for and educate our learners. Officials in government offices have ensured that our people continue to receive services.
 
We have learned many lessons from the pandemic. COVID-19 has exposed the chasms between the planning and execution of public service delivery; and the reality of government departments still working in silos when they should be working together in a seamless, development-orientated manner. At the same time, COVID-19 has shown us what is possible if we work in a coordinated manner and manage resources effectively and efficiently.
 
At the launch of last year’s Public Service Month, I made specific reference to the need for a new integrated model for service delivery that is responsive, adaptive and brings development to where it is needed most.
 
This adaptive service delivery model, or District Development Model, is exactly what the Batho Pele White Paper compels us to do: establish a citizen centred Public Service that is seamless, adaptive and responsive.
 
We call on public servants to be part of this process by identifying ways in which we can realise a public service focused on meeting the needs and advancing the interests of citizens.
 
Our commitment to building a state that is ethical, capable and above all developmental necessitates that civil servants see themselves not merely as state functionaries but as development workers.
 
Though we must continue in earnest with our task of rooting out those whose conduct makes them ill-suited for public service, we must at the same time acknowledge the vast majority are exemplary civil servants. They have kept us going.
 
One speaks here of the grandmother who is assisted when she receives her grant every month; the critically-ill patient in the public hospital who is nursed back to health by caring staff; the social worker who helps to keep families together; the vulnerable woman who is treated with dignity by a member of the South African Police Service; and the businessperson who receives their documentation at the Home Affairs office on time to travel to expand their business.
 
The professionalism of these hardworking, ethical and principled public servants keeps our country afloat, and their good work brings hope to our people.
 
At a time when shortcomings in the public service are amplified and bad news falls like an avalanche, we acknowledge our public servants of South Africa and their service.
 
It may be said that they are just doing what they are paid to do. But public service is a calling – one to which they have ably responded in order that the rights of all people in this country are fulfilled.
 
We are grateful to all our public servants and for all that they do.

From the desk of the President