FOLLOWING analysis of Australian Vice-Chancellors’ (VC) pay, the University of Melbourne’s Duncan Maskell tops the list with a mammoth $1.5 million salary, followed by Monash, Flinders and Queensland universities.  

Vice-Chancellors presiding over prestigious Group of Eight (Go8) universities take home some of the most generous pay packages in the country, with the University of Sydney’s Professor Mark Scott and UNSW’s Professor Attila Brungs receiving $1.15 and $1.05 million respectively. Adelaide University’s controversial Professor Peter Hoj also rakes in $1.17 million, joining thirteen other VCs who receive salaries exceeding one million dollars. 

Meanwhile, the ANU’s Professor Brian Schmidt receives a comparatively lower salary standing at $660,943 a year within the group, inclusive of superannuation and excluding housing costs which Schmidt is responsible for paying. Others who share Schmidt’s pay range include Charles Darwin’s Professor Scott Bowman and Wollongong’s Professor Patricia Davidson. 

The lowest paid VC is the specialist University of Divinity’s Professor Peter Sherlock, who took home $260,000. The institution, unlike other universities, is an amalgamation of various Christian denominations’ seminaries. 

Excluding America’s exceptionally wealthy universities, Australia’s VCs command some of the most favourable salaries anywhere in the world, drastically dwarfing their European and British counterparts. One of the UK’s highest-paid VCs, UCL Provost Michael Spence—who used to lead Sydney University—commands $960,000 annually before factoring in rent that exceeded $90,000 in 2021. According to information obtained by Honi through a Freedom of Information request, Spence now resides in London’s posh Bloomsbury Mansion.

The figures also reveal that Australia’s VCs are paid far higher than those occupying the nation’s highest offices, with the majority of VCs’ pay packages dwarfing that of the Prime Minister, who receives just shy of $550,000 a year.

Questions raised over the effectiveness of UCC’s Code 

In 2021, the University Chancellors Council’s (UCC) Australian Universities Vice-Chancellor and Senior Staff Remuneration Code was introduced, encouraging disclosures of VC and university executives’ remuneration. This came on the heels of what has been described as “lavish” pay packages for Australian VCs that saw former Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge call for pay to align with “society’s contemporary expectations and norms”.   

“Reporting of governance and remuneration should be included in the Institution’s Annual Reports,” the code said. 

However, the UCC Code is being perceived as an ineffective measure, with standards of disclosure varying drastically from one university to the next. While universities such as USyd and UniSA disclose a broad pay range, others such as Western Sydney University fully disclose the pay of individual executives short of identifying non-monetary benefits. 

One of the key measures the UCC’s voluntary code uses to benchmark the appropriateness of VCs’ remuneration is the gap between an institution’s median salary compared to its senior executives’. 

“UCC will consider other statements of intent or principle such as the relativity between the median salary for a University and that of its VC and Senior Staff,” the code’s guideline reads. 

However, the guideline places the onus of proposing a “statement of intent or principle” on universities, meaning that university management are, as the voluntary nature of the code implies, not compelled to consider median salary to construct a meaningful boundary from which remuneration may be considered inappropriate by the UCC.  

According to a USyd spokesperson, Scott’s pay, exceeding one million at USyd, “sits within the guidelines outlined in the [Universities Chancellors Council’s] voluntary code”. 

Yet analysis by the NTEU’s Ian Dobson in 2018 found that USyd’s median salary stood at Higher Education Worker Level 7 (HEW 7) of $90,160–$98,224. Today, calculations of data from the University’s 2021 Annual Report indicate that its median salary remains the same four years on. This means that Scott’s salary currently exceeds the average USyd professional staff by a staggering tenfold. 

According to public organisation governance expert Dr Rebecca Boden, universities today see themselves primarily as income generators rather than knowledge-building institutions. 

“We found a correlation, albeit I stress correlation, not causation, between these massive pay increases as universities marketised and they move from being a collegial institution to seeing themselves as businesses,” Boden told Honi, referring to research conducted by her and the late Deakin University Professor Julie Rowlands. 

This tectonic shift over the decades from Margaret Thatcher and Bob Hawke’s governments in the UK and Australia, for Boden, came to enable universities to justify exorbitant expenses by citing universities’ monetary contribution to society and institutions’ large size. 

Indeed, the UCC voluntary code’s pay guidelines stipulates that senior executives’ remuneration must be “fair to the individual and the institution”, taking into account “responsibility, accountability, scale and complexity” of the sector’s “30 billion” dollar economic value. 

Lack of controls on remuneration governance and transparency a major issue

Compared to other countries, the pay of Australia’s VCs remains largely shrouded in opacity. This is in contrast to the United Kingdom where, since 1994, universities have been compelled to disclose this information in their annual reports. Aside from the base salary, institutions are required to disclose the relevant VC’s pensions and benefits. No equivalent set of laws exist in Australia to govern the disclosure of salaries nor governance structure. 

Unlike other countries, Australia has relatively lax oversight of VC and executives’ salaries, with no legislated mechanism to compel universities to declare senior management’s payment aside from the press’ routine reporting on the issue every year.  

Compounded in this is the conflict of interest that comes from VCs’ membership of university subcommittees, which presides over their own salary. 

Vice-Chancellors who do not sit in the same committee that determines their remuneration are rare, with Victoria University’s Adam Shoemaker and USQ’s Geraldine MacKenzie not being a member of their institutions’ remunerations committees. In 2017, Bath University’s Glynis Breakwell resigned when England’s university funding council, HEFCE, condemned Breakwell following a sustained campaign by the local University and College Union (UCU) campaign together with student activists.  

For instance, the University of South Australia’s David Lloyd attended all three meetings of UniSA’s Senior Remuneration Committee, and the same applies for other VCs across the country, including former UNSW VC Professor Ian Jacobs and USyd’s Mark Scott. 

In USyd’s case, a university spokesperson confirmed that Scott’s pay is set by the Senate and that the VC has declared a conflict of interest and is not present when his pay is discussed.

However, Boden argues that both arrangements raise serious questions: “Even if they [VCs] are outside the room for when individual discussion of their salary is going on, they set broader strategy and rules surrounding pay,“ Boden said, referring to Scott’s declaration of interest. “Then, their salary almost drops out and automatically gets fixed by the salary strategy.” 

She pointed out that, even if a VC or an executive were conflicted off individual discussions about their pay, the fact that some executives are appointed by the VC means that there is a herd mentality to inflate bonuses and rewards rather than exercise restraint. This comes from her view of the five-year period following Breakwell’s resignation when the UCC’s counterpart in the UK, the Committee of University Chairs (CUC) released its own voluntary code following the Breakwell scandal. 

“The transparency requirements in many ways are a legitimising device for marketisation. My hunch is that it [the CUC voluntary code] hasn’t had any restraining effect [on salaries],” Boden said. “I don’t think these voluntary codes will do anything.”

From her perspective, Australia faces an acute crisis in university governance structure with rampant conflict of interest and a lack of decision-making independent of VCs and their senior executives. 

Sustained student campaigning and Academic Salaries Tribunal needed for genuine, lasting reform

Ultimately, for Boden, the astronomical rise of VCs’ salaries in the past decade represents a critical “market failure”, in the sense that no internal reforms by university executives can attain meaningful transparency and address the widening pay gap. Instead of relying on internal “tinkering” within universities, she says that the government must intervene to curtail VC salaries and restore public trust in higher education. 

Furthermore, she recommends that Australia needs a federally operated “Vice-Chancellors’ Remuneration Tribunal” to oversee VC pay packages, citing Australia’s former Academic Salaries Tribunal, who used to investigate and determine academic salaries, as a model example. 

“I think it [reform] has to come from the government because it has got skin in the game because they fund universities. So this has to be a regulatory matter because the universities are incapable of regulating themselves, a market failure.” 

Ultimately, Boden is certain that it will take sustained pressure and awareness from student, staff and unions such as the UCU or NTEU to push the government to hold VCs accountable and reduce the increasingly significant pay gap. 

“It [Glynis Breakwell’s resignation] was drummed up because of student and staff activism,” said Boden.  

“It needs to be a national campaign where all students and staff have to come together and say: ‘This has to stop’. That would be much more effective because one VC resigning doesn’t solve the problem because you’ve not changed the system.”

EVERY few days there is another report about the teacher shortage across Australia. Last week, we learned one of Melbourne’s biggest schools is considering a return to home learning to cope with staff shortages.

But as we look at the causes and possible solutions, something we are not talking about is the risks around rushing student teachers into classrooms before they are fully trained and ready.

We are academics with a focus on teacher education and leaders of the Network of Academic Directors of Professional Experience. We are alarmed about the growing trend of sending unqualified teachers into classrooms.

Student teachers are teaching

Our colleagues around Australia are regularly telling us about their students being recruited into paid teaching roles with special permissions to teach. This can be as early as their first, second or third year of study.

In New South Wales, university staff tell us between 20% and 30% of their final year (fourth-year) students are employed in teaching roles. Prior to the pandemic, this only occurred in exceptional circumstances.

In Victoria, as of July, the Victorian Institute of Teaching (the teaching regulator) has approved 782 “permission-to-teach” applications for final-year education students. This is a category specifically established at the beginning of 2022 to help support schools with COVID-related workforce shortages.

In Queensland, we are seeing students teaching in classrooms before they have graduated in the hundreds, rather than handfuls. Industry partners are telling us they predict more than 600 “permissions to teach” for student teachers in Queensland in 2022. This is up from 320 in the state in 2021.

Mixing work and study

All states and territories have schemes to allow student teachers into the classroom in a paid (non-studying) role. For example, in Tasmania, when a suitable registered teacher cannot be found, a school can apply to employ a student under a “limited authority to teach”. In the Northern Territory, a similar process allows schools to recruit people to teach in hard-to-fill or specialised teaching roles.

Western Australia has also opened up opportunities for final year students to work part-time in public high schools (with mentoring) and to register in the casual teacher pool.

The state also uses an existing fast-track to put students into the classroom as paid teachers. The Teach for Australia program employs “associates” in a school after six-weeks of intensive training. From this point on, associates balance study in a master of teaching program with employment as a teacher, with support from mentor teachers and Teach for Australia.

WA currently has 175 full-time equivalent staff in public schools, who may be Teach for Australia associates, or working towards a teaching qualification. This is up from 112 in 2020. Taking into account casual and part-time workers, the actual number of students teaching in the system is likely to be higher.

A risky fix

Putting student teachers in the classroom to help deal with the teacher shortage seems logical. But it is a quick and risky fix.

Arguably, education students are already less prepared for the classroom than their pre-pandemic peers. Around the world, student teachers have experienced disrupted study because of the pandemic with shortened, simulated and irregular practical placements.

This is on top of interruptions to their regular coursework, thanks to disruption the pandemic has caused within and beyond their studies.

Additionally, student teachers are entering a stressed and depleted workforce. COVID has added to teachers’ already demanding workloads, made them sick (and therefore absent at times) and seen some reach the end of their tether and leave.

When more experienced staff are stretched, under-prepared teachers cannot be well-supported by those around them.

While all this is happening, it is becoming harder for student teachers to get supervised practical experience as part of their teacher training – there are less teachers to supervise them.

These factors mean student teachers are less prepared than in previous years and are entering workplaces that are demanding more of them.

Graduates will burn out

From an administrative perspective, this situation is placing a huge strain on teacher registration bodies around Australia, who are not structured to assess and process masses of “special authority” applications.

We are alarmed about the potential fallout here. Under-prepared and fast-tracked teachers cannot be well-supported. Nor can they be expected to perform as highly effective graduate teachers when they are drawing on disrupted university preparation and limited placements.

This leaves them vulnerable to burnout and leaving the profession prematurely.

Importantly, these factors are also likely to exacerbate the impact of COVID on children’s learning and development.

The increased needs of many children and young people have increased the complex demands of teaching them. The training of future teachers needs to prepare them for the new realities and requirements of teaching.

This will not improve ‘quality’

The current approach contradicts the federal government’s talk about improving teacher “quality” and we fear universities will be blamed for the outcomes of putting under-prepared graduates into schools.

We need to put our focus back on preparing high-quality teaching graduates – even if this takes more time and resources to get them into the classroom.

Alongside other strategies and responses, employers need to prioritise placements for student teachers. This will allow them to progress through to career entry under conducive conditions. Good preparation is essential for teacher effectiveness and retention.

What we are doing at the moment is equivalent to giving student teachers an umbrella to go out into a raging thunder storm. This is not sensible, justifiable or sustainable.

This approach also has the potential to worsen teacher shortages in the coming years and risks seeing teacher attrition levels like we have never seen before.

THE CONVERSATION

KWAZULU-NATAL has a new MEC for Education – Mbalenhle Cleopatra Frazer. 

Frazer, who replaces Kwazi Mshengu following a cabinet reshuffle last week, is a former teacher and a trade unionist.

She commenced her work last Friday.

The South African Democratic Teachers Union’s (SATDU) in KwaZulu-Natal has welcomed the appointment of Frazer as the new KZN MEC for Education.

“As a teacher herself, the new MEC understands the Department and the needs of schools. SADTU hopes she will embrace unions and other stakeholders and work with them to further stabilise the department and ensure that the environment in schools is truly supportive of quality education delivery,” said SADTU provincial secretary Nomarashiya Caluza.

SATDU thanked Mshengu for the work he has done since his appointment as the MEC for Education in the province.

“His open-door policy allowed all stakeholders to feel free to raise issues with him. This, SADTU believes was based on his understanding that all stakeholders are equally important and central in the delivery of quality public education. Honesty and transparency were his guiding principleswhich enabled him to survive in the department.” Caluza.

SADTU said that Frazer is taking over a stable department.

“By saying the Department is stable does not suggest that there are no challenges. The Department that she is inheriting is facing the effects of budget cuts which is why there are not enough teachers in schools, backlog in infrastructure, safety and security challenges in schools and many other known challenges.”

Caluza urged Frazer to prioritise the province’s Quality Learning and Teaching campaign.

“Prioritise the Quality Learning and Teaching campaign through mobilising all stakeholders and
education loving people to participate in protecting schools. Making schools safe and ensuring that there are no lesson losses.”

Newly appointed KZN Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube said Frazer will be meeting with organised labour, school principals, school governing bodies and communities.”

The South African Principals Association -KwaZulu Natal, has congratulated also Frazer on her new appointment.

SAPA KZN said “through our collective and professional participation, strive to excel in our task through self-development and interaction as an independent, non-racial and non-aligned Association.”

Mshengu has been the MEC for Education since 2019 said he was grateful for the opportunity given to him by the ANC to serve the people of KZN.

“I have always understood and appreciated that I serve at the behest of my organisation and that it reserves a right to make any decision and at any given moment concerning the position I held on its behalf. Acting in accordance with this appreciation, I have always regarded this assignment not as career but a service,” said Mshengu.

“I wish to sincerely thank all staff members from the Department of Education for being a cornerstone of the victories we scored. Collectively we have steered the education sector in the province to what I verily believe is the right direction,” he said.

INSIDE EDUCATION

DANICA HANSEN

BADMINTON players from Durban Girls’ High School won the SA High Schools Championships this week.

The finals were held at KZN Badminton Hall in Morningside on Monday, August 8. Matches kicked off on
Saturday, August 6 with some tough competition on the court.

Speaking to Berea Mail, Durban Girls’ High School Badminton coach Gilles Audibert said his team will
represent South Africa in Mauritius at the All Africa Championships.

“This upcoming tournament in Mauritius hosts the best of the best from countries in Africa. We are
hoping to put the funds together to get there,” he said.

Audibert added that this is the first time in Durban Girls’ High School history that a badminton team has
made it to the national finals.

“I am so impressed with my team’s performance. Considering that two of our players just started
playing badminton three years ago, this is a huge achievement. This was the first time we not only made
it to the finals but won,” he said.

Callista Ramowtar, who is on the Durban Girls’ High School team, recently represented South Africa in
the U15 category in an international tournament in Benin.

Several other Berea schools took part in the event, including Durban High School and Durban Girls’
College.

Emelda Botha, junior chairperson for KZN Badminton, and national junior selector for Badminton South
Africa, said there were seven teams participating in the boys’ category and seven teams in the girls’
category.

In the girls’ category, Durban Girls’ High School placed first, followed by Thandi E Sibeco Secondary
School in second place and Alberton Girls’ High School in third position. The Westville Boys’ High School
team placed first in the boys’ category, followed by Jim Fouche School in second place and Durban High
School in third position.

Botha noted a decline in participants following the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The tournament went really well. Lots of fun was had by all, and we hope to see the number of
participants increase going forward. The last time we held this tournament, there were 33 teams. This
year, we had just 14 teams enter,” she said.

The national tournament is held annually in various provinces.

BEREAMAIL

THE deadline for stakeholders and interested individuals to submit written comments on the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA Bill closed on Monday.

This after the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education issued a reminder that gave people an opportunity to comment on the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill.

Committee Chairperson Bongiwe Mbinqo-Gigaba said the committee received several requests for an extension to the deadline, which was initially set for June 15, 2022.

Mbinqo-Gigaba said that the committee appreciates the public’s input and wants to ensure legislation that speaks to the needs and wants of the sector.

“The committee noted several factors that could have impacted on the public not having sufficient time to comment on the Bill, like it being an examination period. As the committee appreciates public input and wants to ensure legislation that speaks to the needs and wants of the sector, we decided to heed the calls for the extension of the deadline,” said Mbinqo-Gigaba.

BELA was introduced to Parliament on January 10 and seeks to hand control to the department in determining a school’s language policy.

The Bill proposes to amend the South African Schools Act (SASA) of 1996 and the Employment of Educators Act (EEA) of 1998, so as to align them with developments in the education landscape and to ensure that systems of learning are put in place in a manner that gives effect to the right to basic education enshrined in section 29(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996.

Amongst other things, the Bill seeks to amend certain definitions, to provide that attendance of Grade R is compulsory and to provide for system improvements in terms of admission of learners to public schools.

It also provides for financial and public accountability frameworks for governing bodies and provincial departments.

The Bill further provides the Minister with additional regulatory powers and enhances the decision-making and oversight powers of heads of departments and those of members of executive councils.

The Bill further proposes technical and substantive adjustments, clarifies certain existing provisions, inserts provisions not provided for in existing legislation and strengthens enforcement mechanisms for offences and penalties.

The committee urges any person or organisation wishing to submit written comments is at liberty to direct submission for attention: Mr Llewellyn Brown, the Committee Secretary, via email: belabill02@parliament.gov.za or online at https://forms.gle/MoC6AdbdQyYPk3Y49 or via WhatsApp: +27 60 550 9848. Mr Llewellyn Brown can be reached on 083 709 8450 for
enquiries.

The Bill is accessible at: https://www.parliament.gov.za/bill/2300398

Written submissions must reach Parliament by no later than 15 August 2022 at 16:00.

In addition to written submissions, kindly indicate if you would like to make oral submissions.

All correspondence should be addressed to Mrs BP Mbinqo-Gigaba, Chairperson: PC on Basic Education and marked for the attention of Mr LA Brown.

The public is urged to provide the name, surname, telephone number, and email address of the person or organisation submitting the comments.

INSIDE EDUCATION

PROCTORING software monitors a student’s computer or phone while they write exams. These programs have been around for some time but became ubiquitous during online learning in the pandemic.

Proctoria, Respondus and Proctor U, the most popular programs, have enjoyed a 500% increase in usage since the start of COVID-19 and proctoring software is now a US$19 billion global market.

Some proctoring programs work by checking that the student has only the test software and no other programs open; others monitor keystrokes. Some use the computer’s camera or cellphone audio to check that the student is working alone. A number of South African universities have taken up cellphone monitoring programs.

But this software is not innocuous.

I argue in a recent article that the uptake of proctoring software is a symptom of a much larger problem.

Universities have neglected their educational responsibilities in service of a neoliberal ideology. This positions students as customers and higher education as a business. It’s a problem because when universities become businesses selling qualifications, it narrows their potential to be places where students enjoy transformative relationships with knowledge, and where knowledge is created to serve people and the planet.

The ability to memorise information and regurgitate it within a short time limit is required in only a small handful of situations. What most students need is to understand how knowledge is made in their field of study, what contributions that field makes to society, and how they can source and evaluate information to answer questions and resolve problems. They need to learn how to be ethical, critical citizens.

Assessment directed towards such ends looks very different from current practices, which are obsessed with both memorisation and cheating.

What’s wrong with proctoring

Proctoring raises three issues of concern: privacy, racism and ableism.

Privacy: Those selling the software insist that students give consent to its use. But if students don’t, they are excluded from the exam. Universities have ethics committees to make sure their researchers don’t use such coercive tactics and yet they use them on students. Researchers have to ensure that potential participants fully understand a study’s potential risks and benefits before they can offer informed consent.

The invasiveness of the software is well documented and many scholars have said it has most of the characteristics of illegal spyware.

Allowing a stranger to listen in on a student’s family home as they write a test is surely an indication that it’s the wrong way of doing assessment.

Racism of facial recognition software: Whether it is the photo tagging suggestions of social media, border security systems, or proctoring software, facial recognition remains poor at recognising people with darker skin. The artificial intelligence that compares the face on the student card to the person in front of the computer camera is far more likely to flag a suspicion if that student is black than if they are white.

Ableism of facial recognition: Anyone with a body shape that does not meet the program’s expectations can find themselves flagged as suspicious. This includes the tics and stimming of people with Tourette’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, Huntington’s syndrome and autism.

Many American universities have now opted out of proctoring software in response to protests by academics and students.

But opting out attends to the symptom – universities spying on their students – and not to the causes of such activities.

Neoliberal ideology

The underlying cause is that many universities around the world have taken on a neoliberal ideology, whereby the worth of any person, object, creature or activity is thought to be measurable in terms of its contribution to the economy.

A neoliberal university believes, firstly, that it is a business in the knowledge market. In commercialising education, universities increasingly outsource educational activities – such as monitoring examinations using proctoring software.

When Ian Linkletter, an educational technologist at the University of British Columbia in Canada, tweeted criticisms of the proctoring software used in his university, he was sued by the company. The market cannot allow the critical engagement that should be at the heart of a university.

Secondly, the neoliberal university treats the student as a customer. In a world where knowledge is packaged and sold as a commodity, software companies convince universities that their product, the qualifications they award, can be devalued if they are not policed.

In such an understanding of the university, proctoring software makes sense.

It should come as no surprise that students are quickly learning to game the system. The internet is replete with tips on how to confuse the software and get assistance online even while the software is running.

The third characteristic of neoliberal ideology is that power is accorded along lines of wealth. This characteristic is also in evidence in most universities worldwide. The university, as a relatively wealthy institution, has the power to implement invasive technology without much challenge. The average student must simply comply.

Universities for the common good

It becomes impossible to implement proctoring software if the conception of the university is that it is a social structure that contributes powerful, principled knowledge in service of people and the planet.

Such a social structure would need to expend significant energy in inducting students into their role as knowledge creators and encouraging them to take on this identity responsibly. This would require shifts in how academics interact with students and articulate the purpose of a higher education to students and the public. It would also require a rethink of the form and function of assessment.

THE CONVERSATION

KEMISOLA Bolarinwa is a robotics and embedded systems engineer. She’s also the Founder and CEO of Nextwear Technologies, a company that builds wearables to enhance healthcare. While her invention of the smart bra shot her into the limelight, she discovered why most people shy away from deep tech in Nigeria. 

In addition to being an inventor, Bolarinwa is also a strong advocate for getting more women interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), something she was passionate about growing up. 

In February 2022, she designed the prototype for her biggest invention yet, the smart bra, spurred by the death of a loved one in 2017. 

Before the death of her aunt, she rarely paid any attention to breast cancer because it was just something she heard on the TV or radio. In her experience, people don’t care about things like that until they happen to them.

Making frequent trips to the hospital and seeing her aunt and other women painfully battle breast cancer was heartbreaking. And after losing her aunt to the disease, Bolarinwa began researching ways to tackle it.

She soon discovered that early detection was the key to beating breast cancer, but unfortunately, most women don’t detect it until it’s too late. After a year and a half of intense research, she came up with the Smart bra in 2019.

To detect lumps in the breast, the smart bra repurposes ultrasound technology into a small form factor. Shrinking down an ultrasound machine to a portable size where it becomes wearable. 

According to Bolarinwa, this was possible with nanotechnology — a branch of science, technology, and engineering that deals with the manufacturing of tech in small sizes. 

For more context, the smart bra uses an ultrasound system called the Doppler that bounces high-frequency sound waves off the body to detect blood clots, heart defects, and blocked arteries. This works differently from ultrasound machines that use sound waves to generate images of the scanned area.

The Doppler ultrasound was re-engineered into small sensors distributed within the cups of the bra to sense lumps. Apart from that, the smart bra also uses the Internet of things (IoT) to communicate results to a smartphone or laptop. It is powered by a rechargeable lithium-polymer battery (LiPo). 

While researching, Bolarinwa found that most women often forgot or didn’t know to check their breasts for lumps; the Smart bra does this for them seamlessly. 

The device only needs to be worn for up to 30 minutes to get the readings required, and its IoT and Application Programming Interface (API) components translate readings into understandable information via a mobile app. 

After years of research and developing a prototype, there’s still a lot of work to be done on the smart bra before it can be commercialised.

Bolarinwa said the smart bra still needs further development and extensive clinical trials and gave a time frame between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 for mass production.

But, she also admitted she’d probably be raising her seed round if she built a software platform. 

“In four months, a fintech platform will be built and be ready for the market.” This is one of the reasons why few people play in the hardware or deep tech side of technology in Africa. 

With deep tech, research and development could be a fintech startup’s Series A; developing a prototype afterwards is a separate conversation. Then mass-producing the product could run into hundreds of millions of dollars. 

According to Bolarinwa, getting parts to build the prototype alone took months to import. Another challenge unique to her invention was getting adequate research materials and institutes. 

“There aren’t enough research institutes,” she said. Besides doing intense Google searches and watching countless YouTube videos, she had no infrastructure to conduct hands-on research in laboratories. 

While Nextwear Technologies hasn’t launched a product into the market yet, it has not had trouble getting funding. 

Bolarinwa said the prototype launch made many people reach out to her. Some even proffered solutions on how the sensors can read higher and more accurate frequencies, while others offered investment opportunities. 

To date, she has gotten over $120,000 in funding. However, other hardware manufacturers in Nigeria aren’t as lucky. 

Startup funding reports have shown that African startups are getting funded. However, most of the financing goes to startups with software solutions. Last year, 62% of the $4 billion African startups raised went to fintech, while 8% went to biotech. 

A 2019 Techpoint Africa article revealed that “investors may lack the expertise needed to accurately evaluate the potential of these technologies.”

Bolarinwa’s solution has had people from all over the world reach out to her. Some in awe of its novelty, and others to play a part in developing the tech. 

However, little support has come from the Nigerian government. Expressing her disappointment, she said, “we’re Nigerians and we know how it works, so I’m not surprised. Even when we call for follow-ups, it seems we’re disturbing the government.” 

Meanwhile, it hasn’t just been crickets and silence on the part of the government. Bolarinwa admitted that the Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, provided support towards getting a patent registration for her invention. 

Despite this, she decried the lack of encouragement for hardware developers, the ones capable of solving problems from the roots. 

From the military to medicine and engineering, Bolarinwa believes deep technology holds the cure for Africa’s failing economies.

Techpoint.africa

THE Department of Basic Education is making significant changes to the school curriculum to boost mathematics, science and technology among learners in the country – and is rolling out equipment and software to support new subjects including robotics and coding.

Responding in a written parliamentary Q&A this week, basic education minister Angie Motshekga provided an update on how schools are being supported in this strategy.

One of the key strategies being used, Motshekga said, is leveraging existing STEM programmes at schools.

The department launched the Dinaledi Schools project in 2005, which was subsequently merged with the Mathematics, Science and Technology Conditional Grant following a review by the DBE in 2015.

The strategic goal of the MST Grant is to increase the number of learners taking mathematics, science and technology subjects, improve the success rates in the subjects, and improve teachers’ capabilities, the department said.

“The grant’s purpose is to provide support and resources to schools, teachers and learners in line with the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) for the improvement of mathematics, science and technology teaching and learning at selected public schools,” Motshekga said.

Notably, the department’s recent push into new subjects like robotics and coding and vocational training has become a significant part of the project.

According to Motshekga, 485 schools have so far been supplied with subject-specific computer hardware and related software for CAPS tech subjects, including coding and robotics pilot schools.

There have also been 1,256 laboratories supplied with apparatus and consumables for mathematics, science and technology subjects, including coding and robotics kits, she said.

In terms of student support, the department noted that 50,000 learners in the country registered to participate in mathematics, science and technology olympiads/fairs/expos and other events, including support through learner camps and additional learning, teaching and support material such as study guides.

There have also been 1,500 teachers attending specific structured training and orientation in subject content and teaching methodologies on CAPS for electrical, civil and mechanical technology, technical mathematics, and technical sciences.

Over 1,000 teachers and subject advisors have attended targeted and structured training in teaching methodologies and subject content either for mathematics, physical, life, natural and agricultural sciences, technology, computer applications technology, information technology, agricultural management and technology subjects, it said.

The department plans to fully implement coding and robotics as new schools subject for Grade R-3 and 7 students in the 2023 academic year.

A pilot curriculum for these subjects was initially introduced at some schools in the third term of the 2021 academic year, it said. It plans to expand these tech-focused subjects to other grades in subsequent years.

The coding and robotics pilot for Grades 4-6 and for Grades 8 was planned for 2022 and will be followed by a Grade 9 pilot in 2023. The full-scale implementation for Grades 4-6 and Grade 8 is planned for 2024, and Grade 9 in 2025, the department said.

Skill shortage

While the department is boosting its support and training for these new technical subjects, experts in the education field have warned that the country is facing a shortage of skilled teachers, mainly because a large percentage of the current workforce is nearing retirement age.

The Department of Basic Education has previously responded to claims of a skills crisis in teaching, saying that the number of new teaching graduates is increasing every year.

“The number of initial teacher education graduates has grown over the last 10 years from an output of about 7,973 in 2010 to 31,799 in 2020,” it said.

The 25,000 graduates mark was reached in 2017, it said, adding that the current enrolment trends point to the upward trajectory in graduation numbers.

The output of graduates is favoured towards the Senior/Further Education and Training Phases (SP/FET) – partly because the two qualification pathways allow for SP/FET to qualify through both the Bachelor of Education (BEd) and Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) while Foundation Phase (FP) is largely limited to BEd pathway, the department said.

The average teacher attrition rate over is 15,200 a year – largely due to retirement but also because of resignations, ill health and death.

The teacher supply in terms of quantity is reasonably adequate, the department said, at least from the analysis of the situation in public education.

BUSINESS TECH

THE Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) has concluded an agreement with Noorder Paarl High School for the use of the Sandrift Sports Facility property adjacent to the school.

The school principal and community members had approached the department earlier this year, asking about the use of the property as the school was in need of sporting facilities and the property was not being used.

De Lille noted that, as the custodian of state-owned properties, the department has a mandate to provide land or buildings for use by government departments and through sale, donation or letting out, the department may also enter into agreements with community-based organisations to use properties not being utilised by government for community purposes.

“The Noorder Paarl High School, which is a no fee school with more than 1 000 pupils, has been in dire need of proper sporting facilities for many years. The school contacted the department to enquire about the use of the field and following the finalisation of various due processes within the department, we are delighted that we were able to sign a User Agreement with the school on Friday, 5 August 2022.

“This agreement with the Noorder Paarl High School is in line with my commitment that we must use public land for public good and I am pleased that we were able to conclude this agreement with the school to enable them to have a space for sporting activities,” de Lille said.

She said the school principal and the governing body welcomed this agreement, saying it would greatly assist their work of conducting sports activities with decent facilities.

The Minister said many schools and community organisations do good work in communities and “access to sporting facilities is an important part in the development of young people and the community at large”.

She emphasised that access to facilities and land is one of the key forms of assistance government can give to enable communities to have a sense of belonging and see communities reach their full potential.

“Very often under-resourced communities struggle to hone and develop young sporting talent due to lack of facilities and it is incumbent on us to work with communities to provide available spaces so that communities can efficiently carry out community upliftment and development work.

“Many of our country’s great sporting talents hail from Paarl, like the late Chester Williams had to travel outside Paarl to practice sports, and we must do a lot more to help communities such as providing access to land and services so that they can fulfil their aspirations without any hindrances,” the Minister said.

She said the department’s responsibilities include monitoring the agreement to ensure that operational efficiency of the building is maintained and user complies with terms and conditions of the agreement.

The department has also committed to do renovations to bring the facilities up to standard.

The sporting field has been made available to the Noorder Paarl High School to be used for activities associated with various sporting codes, in compliance with the relevant legislation and the agreement.

“It is my hope that this agreement will allow the school to enhance development of sporting talents and give young people a safe space to participate in sport. Sport is an important part of social development and sport fields often provide children with a safe haven where they can escape the ills in our communities by having a space where they can develop their talents,” de Lille said.

SA NEWS

SOUTH African women have been challenged to take part in conversations aimed at finding solutions to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Member of the Presidential Climate Change Commission, Princess Tsakani Nkambule, said women must be at the centre of decision making because they endure the most of the adverse effects of climate change.

“As women, we need to prepare [ourselves] on how we will be impacted by this climate change conditions, [and] how do we adjust our businesses in our environment to respond to the impact of climate change.

“Women in South Africa, especially women in rural areas are vulnerable and at the worst conditions. Women, children and the unemployed form part of society that need to ensure that during transition they are not left behind,” Nkambule said on Friday.

Nkambule was speaking at a webinar on the impact of climate change on women.

The webinar, hosted by the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) as part of Women’s Month celebrations, provided a conversational space for women to reflect on the unique ways in which they are impacted by climate change, including ways in which different industries can adapt their operations to respond to the effect of climate change.

Nkambule noted that the country is pursuing an energy mix that includes renewables.

“As women where are we? How do we participate in this environment, how do we transform our businesses as we are operating today and move towards the green economy? How do we ensure that in our environment there’s upskilling to allow us to participate in this economy?”

Farmer Thandiwe Mchunu, from Amahlongwa near Umkomaas, on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast, insisted that there is no need to take organic waste to landfills.

Instead, she said, households can use their vegetable peels.

“What we need to do, even at household level, whenever you are in the kitchen peeling that onion, or just eating your banana or orange, do not take the peels to the bin. We are turning food waste into fresh food, we have the skills and strength [and] even support from our communities and families. Ours is to access the market to grow from small scale to big scale farmers,” Mchunu said.

She also admits that while there is plenty of land in rural areas to be used for farming, it is not easy for women to access it.

“Everyone needs to come into [the] economic war and fight to enter the space, whether you are in rural areas or in the township, you need to be able to ask yourself what are you contributing to mitigate climate change,” Mchunu said.

Mchunu, who is currently studying towards a Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering, also noted that South Africa has many women graduating in engineering, even in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) areas. She said these are change maker careers that can come up with solutions to address climate change.

Just Energy Transition Framework

Last month, the Presidential Climate Committee (PCC) presented the Just Energy Transition (JET) Framework to President Cyril Ramaphosa, which will serve as a key evidence-based guide for policy making for South Africa’s transition from a carbon intensive economy towards a greener and cleaner economy.

President Ramaphosa said as the framework underscores, combating climate change is not only an environmental imperative, but an economic one as well.

“This framework is an evidence-based document and a victory for evidence-based policymaking. The publication of this framework must now serve as a call to action to each of us to embrace the opportunities presented by a low-carbon, inclusive, climate resilient economy and society,” the President said at the time.

The PCC has held stakeholder engagements, community dialogues and colloquiums in a bid to conduct robust research and analysis and hear views on South Africa’s transition in a bid to leave no one behind.

SA NEWS