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Opinion: Universities are engines of innovation that make a positive impact, says Professor Sibusiso Moyo

SIBUSISO MOYO

WORLD Creativity and Innovation Day is observed annually on 21 April to raise awareness about the importance of creativity and innovation in problem-solving, economic development, societal advancement and driving positive change in the world. 

Whilst there is no one definitive way that one could celebrate this day, I think it is important to acknowledge the role universities, specifically African universities, can play to solve pressing global challenges, improve lives and make a positive impact. Many of the most important breakthroughs have come out of universities. From the development of the internet to the discovery of new vaccines and treatments for diseases or solutions to climate change.

As Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies at Stellenbosch University, I am fully aware of how important cutting-edge research and innovation, excellent infrastructure and high-quality training are to produce new knowledge needed to solve our environmental and societal problems.

I would argue that universities could be considered to be the engines for innovation and research. Just as an engine converts fuel into energy to make a machine, like a vehicle, move so do universities convert innovative ideas into knowledge and inventions that move society forward and address our societal challenges.

Just like the engine is made up of different components (the head, the block and the oil sump), a university typically has a combination of resources that allows for innovative thinking and research.

These include, among others, talented and motivated researchers and students who are constantly collaborating to generate new ideas and ways of doing things; well-equipped laboratories, libraries and other facilities that can support research and development activities; a network of industry, government and other organisations that can provide the support and funding needed for research and development activities; and a culture driven to do work in service to society whilst striving for excellence.

Research and innovation in Africa

Since I live and work in Africa, I cannot let the opportunity go by to reflect on the importance of research and innovation for the continent and the role that African universities play in this regard.

We need innovative and creative solutions for Africa’s unique challenges related to, among others, water, clean energy, diseases, food security, education and training, land ownership and use, transformation, technology, health and housing. This is where tertiary institutions in South Africa and the rest of the continent, through collaborative partnerships, can make a valuable contribution by using the discoveries and inventions of their scientists to change society for the better.

There are many examples of how universities have done this in the past. One recent example is how our country’s scientists used innovative methods during the Covid-19 pandemic to detect important variants of SARS-CoV-2.

Another one is the new Biomedical Research Institute (BMRI), a cutting-edge biomedical research facility that was officially opened at our Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences this week.

Here, leading South African and African researchers and students are coming up with creative ways to investigate diseases that have the greatest impact on the country and the rest of the continent. Through innovation, they can translate their discoveries into improving the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of illnesses such as tuberculosis, cardio-metabolic disease, HIV, diabetes and neurological disorders.

If universities want to be locally relevant, but also globally competitive, they will have to be creative in how they help to address societal challenges.

They will have to continuously focus on the unique areas in which they have developed expertise over time and built collaborative networks with knowledge partners. This will help them to remain engines of innovation where creative minds work together beyond disciplinary silos to find solutions to some of the most pressing challenges.

Overall, universities play a crucial role in fostering creativity and innovation through their research, education, collaboration, entrepreneurship, and openness. They provide an environment that encourages exploration, experimentation, and the development of new ideas that can have a significant impact on society.

Just like an engine needs fuel to work, universities need funding to support and enable research activities and to drive innovation in collaboration communities, municipalities, governments and the private and public sectors to the benefit of society as a whole.

*Professor Sibusiso Moyo is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies at Stellenbosch University.

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Pacina Retail’s school nutrition tender terminated – KZN Education

PHUTI MOSOMANE

PACINA Retail (Pty) LTD, the service provider for school nutrition in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), has announced its decision to withdraw from the R2.1 billion tender amid controversy.

The company told KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government that its withdrawal is contingent upon being reimbursed for all costs incurred thus far.

The KZN Department of Education has been informed of this development.

KZN Education Head of Communications, Muzi Mahlambi, said: “Following the withdrawal, we have issued a circular to schools to indicate that as from the 2nd of May, we will go back to the old method of doing things. Service providers who were awarded particular clusters will be dealing directly with the schools without any middle person.”

The KZN Department of Education has requested schools and service providers to work together over the weekend to ensure that all learners are fed by Tuesday.

This comes after the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) requested more information about the R2.1 billion school nutrition tender, with plans to investigate it.

The ANC in KZN has called for the immediate termination of the contract, urging the department to approach the high court for an urgent termination order.

Trade union SAFTU has also called for the immediate termination of the contract.

The department has been unable to provide a clear explanation for the change in the contract’s operating procedures.

The scandal has prompted Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, to threaten to terminate the contract.

Insiders reveal that the contracted service provider did not have the capacity to cover every school and district in the province, leaving over 3,500 learners without food.

INSIDE EDUCATION

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R40 million to boost KZN school sports

STAFF REPORTER

THE KwaZulu-Natal Sport, Arts and Culture, has set aside R40.6 million from the Mass Participation Conditional Grant for the implementation of school sport.

Presenting the department’s R1.493 billion 2023-2024 Budget Vote at KZN Legislature in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday, Acting Sport, Arts and Culture MEC, Bongiwe Sithole-Moloi said, an additional R10 million will be allocated through the equitable share.

“The R50.6 million will not be sufficient to sustain the three season (Autumn, Winter and Summer Games) National School Sport Programme and additional resources need to be committed from the Department of Education.”

“The department will focus on information campaigns to increase knowledge and understanding of national symbols among learners at school. The programme includes the roll out of the “I am the flag” campaign,” Sithole-Moloi said.

The MEC also announced that the department has planned to provide 450 schools with sport equipment and attire to conduct school sport activities and encourage learners to participate in intra and inter-school leagues and tournaments.

She said that a total of 160 school sport co-ordinators will be employed on contract, to provide assistance with programmes in schools, clusters and wards.

“Training will be provided to 600 educators and volunteers in coaching, technical officiating and team management. Approximately 26 000 learners are being targeted to compete at the district tournaments,” Sithole-Moloi said.

She added that support will continue to be given to partnerships with the private sector, including Build-It, amongst others, in offering the under 13 football and netball developmental programmes and project with other public enterprises to develop school sport.

“The programme will involve over 1 750 [Under] 13 learners in 12 District Tournaments. Twelve Sport Ambassadors (ex-professionals) will be involved in the programme. Focus will once more be on the provision of competitions to unearth football talent to participate in the CAF (Confederation of African Football) Schools Football Tournaments in Africa,” the MEC explained.

Over R190m allocated for infrastructure development projects

Sithole-Moloi announced that a total budget of R192 million has been set aside for infrastructure development projects. She said that a budget of R16 million has been set aside for the construction of 33 minor sport facilities, including 22 combo courts and play gyms for Early Childhood Development (ECD).

The MECreiterated that the delivery of sport, arts and culture related infrastructure for rural areas remain a focus for the department. This includes the establishment of libraries, community arts centres, sport facilities, small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs), and other arts and culture infrastructure.

She said the department is targeting to complete three facilities in 2023/24 financial year namely, and these include Ofabeni Study Library, KwaMdakane Standard Library, as well as Winston Churchill Theatre.

“The department will continue to fund the construction of five libraries around the province for different municipalities, [including] uMzumbe Library, KwaDlangezwa Library, Endaleni Library, Pomeroy Library, as well as Lubisi Library.

“In addition, the rehabilitation of three Arts Centres and three libraries is planned to commence in 2023/2024 financial year. These are uThungulu, Osizweni and Mbazwana Arts centres. Under Library Services the following three libraries will be renovated [in] Jozini, Ndumo and Wasbank libraries,” Sithole-Moloi highlighted.

Creating job opportunities

Meanwhile, Sithole-Moloi said the department has, over the medium term, planned on creating job opportunities in the sport, and cultural and creative industries sectors.

She announced that a total of R2.0 million has been allocated to the KZN Sport Confederation for the employment of sport ambassadors (legends and ex-professionals) to serve as mentors, talent scouts and coaches at the ward level and to support the school sport and club development programme.

She said 400 jobs have been targeted, and will be created through the Mass Participation Conditional Grant, EPWP Social Sector Incentive Grant and the equitable share.

“Additional jobs as coaches, development officers, administrators will be created by sport federations and other entities that receive financial support through transfer payments,” the MEC said.

SA NEWS

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AI as colonial knowledge production: The resistance begins here

NICK COULDRY

IN recent months, both the tech press and general media have been full of hype about artificial intelligence (AI), and specifically ChatGPT and rival advanced AI programmes. These promise to produce knowledge in radically new ways that threaten to bypass human agency, while demanding our attention.

There are good reasons to fear AI’s consequences for institutions such as universities, whose main asset is their ability not only to disseminate knowledge, but also to produce new knowledge in the form of research.

But universities can also be a key site of resistance to the imposition of AI across society. Indeed, unless universities take seriously their responsibility to resist the uncontrolled rise of AI, the prospects are bleak for the idea of socially produced knowledge on which they, as institutions, depend.

That AI has a major role to play in science, for example, in sequencing the genetic code of dangerous viruses or finding patterns in vast sets of environmental measurements, is beyond question. What is at issue is whether humanity should allow AI to be pushed at us as if it were a magic solution to all our needs and problems.

AI is a form of media – a technologically based way of mediating our relations with the world – and myth-making about new media is certainly nothing new. But AI is a complex case, because of the hype encoded in its very name and conception. AI, as Evgeny Morozov recently argued, is neither fully artificial nor reliably intelligent.

Transpose this point into the much longer debate about knowledge as a tool of global power since the beginning of historic colonialism just over five centuries ago, and the discourse around AI by business, including the businesses that are universities, takes on another, more disturbing, aspect.

Data colonialism

I approach this question from the perspective of the framework of data colonialism, which I have developed over recent years with Ulises Mejias. There is no space here to outline this theory in detail.

Suffice to say, our core idea is that the drive in recent decades to extract data continuously from everything, including every dimension of social and natural life, is a feature not just of contemporary capitalism, but a new stage in the evolution of colonialism.

Whereas historical colonialism seized land and the resources (human or otherwise) needed to exploit it, the new data colonialism takes life itself, extracting value from it in the form of data that can be sold by, or just stored within, corporations and governments.

That colonialism should, in the 21st century, take on this new form as part of capitalism’s continuing expansion, seems less strange when we remember that capitalism itself first emerged in the 18th century from the profits of historical colonialism’s huge asset grab two centuries earlier.

For sure, the concept of data colonialism remains controversial, but suppose you grant it as a possibility. Then AI and the discourse of Big Data appear in a very different light. They can be seen as an account of knowledge that justifies and legitimates the endless extraction of data from life by business and government – power that is very largely located in key centres in the Global North.

Once again, we are not objecting to the use of AI tools to solve specific problems within clear parameters that are set and monitored by actual social communities. We are objecting to the rhetoric and expansionist practice of offering AI as the solution for everything, a solution whose inevitable precondition is humanity offering up its lives for data extraction.

Indeed, fashionable AI projects like ChatGPT can be understood as directly colonial, because they depend on treating the whole of humanity’s cultural production to date as their free input, as author and artist James Bridle has recently argued.

Universities can fight back

Grant this possibility, and it is clear that universities, which until now have depended on a different human-led model of knowledge, can become important sites of resistance to this next colonial phase of knowledge production.

While Big Tech companies are its beneficiaries, the university culture of face-to-face knowledge production is potentially a big loser from AI, except for members of the coding elite who write and implement AI programmes.

Staying loyal to this possibility of resistance within the university, Ulises Mejias and I, with our Mexican colleague Paola Ricaurte, founded nearly three years ago a network of activists and scholars called Tierra Común. It operates in three languages – English, Spanish and Portuguese – with a special but not exclusive focus on Latin America.

Its goal is to further resistance to data colonialism by supporting community-led practices of resistance based on alternative visions of knowledge production in society.

Although the pandemic interrupted our work, we met physically for the first time in Mexico City in December 2022. Our goal is to build bridges between academic institutions and activist practice, listening closely to activist agendas and frameworks, and sharing our own as freely and openly as possible.

This is not, of course, the first time that universities have opened up their work to wider audiences. We follow in a long tradition of similar work, not least in Latin America by philosophers Paulo Freire, Ivan Illich and others.

But it seems particularly important to renew this tradition at a time when a very different model of information and knowledge – artificial intelligence – is vying for dominance. In this context, for sure, writing in academia’s traditional formats is not enough.

Nick Couldry is professor of media, communications and social theory in the department of media and communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom.

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Chiloane rubbishes DA’s sinkhole allegations at Relebogile Secondary School

PHUTI MOSOMANE

GAUTENG MEC for Education Matome Chiloane has criticized the Democratic Alliance (DA) for making “sensationalist and opportunistic” allegations that he is violating the rights of Relebogile Secondary School learners to access basic education.

This comes after the DA’s Gauteng shadow MEC for Education Khume Ramulifho reported Chiloane to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) for violating Relebogile Secondary School learners’ right to access basic education.

The learners of Relebogile Secondary School have not been attending school since 9 February due to a sinkhole that appeared, which has put their safety at risk, and led to the school being shut down.

But Chiloane has come out guns blazing, saying the allegations by the DA that he is denying the learners their rights to education is a cheap Public Relations (PR) stunt.

“It’s sensationalist and opportunistic response to the unfortunate situation in Khutsong where a massive sinkhole has led to disruptions in learning and teaching at Relebogile Secondary School,” he said.

Ramulifho said the department is aware of the issue, and the DA has on several occasions engaged the MEC; however, he has failed to deliver on his promise to provide alternative accommodation to ensure that learning and teaching resume at this school.

Chiloane said several interventions have been undertaken and learners are attending classes at the nearby schools. 

“Firstly, we would like to dispel an insinuation peddled by the DA that the Gauteng Education Department (GDE) is not doing anything to ensure that the impact of the sinkhole at Relebogile Secondary does not negatively affect the learners longer than necessary,” said Chiloane.

“Since February, when the matter came to our attention, several interventions have been undertaken to minimise the negative impact of the disaster on Relebogile learners. The first step was to, naturally, ensure that we protect the lives of all who use the school by immediately evacuating and stopping classes so that we do not put our learners and officials; lives at risk. Once that was done, we ensured that Relebogile learners were accommodated at a neighbouring school as an interim measure, with their classes taking place between 12h00 and 17h00 daily.”

MEC Chiloane added that the school, working with the district, was also implementing a catch-up programme for learners while waiting for a permanent solution.

At the moment, about 28 mobile classes have been delivered to an identified site to accommodate affected learners. Plans are also afoot to finalise water connectivity so that learners can occupy the mobile units as soon as reasonably possible.

He said further plans are in progress to accommodate all Grade 12 learners at a camp in due course, with the intention to assist them before their final examination.

Ramulifho told Inside Education that Chiloane has not done much since February.

“I think the MEC is out of his depth. This thing broke out on February 09, 2023- the MEC only sent a team on Friday following my visit.  We want him to be proactive. He must get mobile classrooms.

 “I personally called MEC Chiloane when I visited the areas pleading with him to send his team,” said in an interview with Inside Education. 

He said because Khutsong is far removed from the main city centres, the department is relaxed knowing very well chances of media visiting and exposing the problem is limited. 

“While we know that this is not a man-made thing, we expect the MEC to have developed alternative plans by now,” he said.

He urged the MEC to provide an attendant register since February as proof that learners have been attending classes.

On Monday, Chiloane also lambasted Ramulifho for deliberately misinterpreting the Department’s information on the number of dropouts in the province.

“To claim that more than 110 000 children dropped out of our schools last year shows how little Ramulifho understands Gauteng’s complex schooling system. Our data shows that the 110 000 learners he is referring to are learners lost to the system in the last 12 years in total – from 2010 to 2022. Those learners are not in the system for various reasons, including, but not limited to, moving to private schools or out of the province, some failed and migrated to other Countries. We will continue to monitor the situation at the school and ensure that we provide more support, as needed. We call for patience and urge the community to allow us to implement our interventions so that our children do not suffer any further,” he said.

Chiloane requested all stakeholders to refrain from exploiting the natural catastrophe at the expense of Gauteng learners. 

The DA had claimed that parents of 10 learners have already indicated that they will be relocating their children to other provinces. In addition, Ramulifho said he fears that more learners may leave or drop out of school, adding to the over 100 000 dropout rates from 2022.

Khutsong is known for having sinkholes, which become more prevalent after heavy rains.

In February, a large sinkhole emerged at the Relebogile High School affecting the toilets and left holes in certain parts of the building.

INSIDE EDUCATION

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Early educators around the world feel burnt out and devalued. Here’s how we can help

MARG ROGERS

SOUTH Australia’s royal commission into early childhood education led by Julia Gillard has released an interim report. The key recommendation is preschool for all three-year-olds  (in a move similar to other states). But the report notes one of the critical considerations around this change will be the early education workforce.

SA’s report comes as the Productivity Commission begins a wide-ranging inquiry into early childhood education and care in Australia.

As part of this, the commission is looking at the workforce. We already know there are high rates of turnover and burnout among early childhood educators. This makes it difficult for people to make a sustainable career in the sector. It also makes it harder for services to find staff and for families to find a childcare place for their children. Our new research looks at why early childhood educators are burning out and how we can fix this.

Educator turnover

Like other essential sectors the issue of burnout in early education has become more pressing since the beginning of the pandemic. A 2021 a union survey of 4,000 educators revealed 73% planned to leave the sector within the next three years due to excessive workload, stress, low pay and status, lack of professional development and career progression. It also found 82% “always” or “often” felt rushed when performing key caring tasks in the past month. As of, 2022, educator job advertisements had doubled since the pandemic.

What is burnout?

Burnout is complex and can involve many things, including:

ongoing physical and mental fatigue

low sense of personal achievement

emotional exhaustion

depersonalisation, where you feel separate from your body or true feelings.

Burnout matters, because it harms educators’ wellbeing, the quality of children’s education, leads to educators leaving and then the ability of parents to work (especially women), and businesses to thrive.

Our new study

We wanted to understand what causes educator burnout, with the aim of helping policymakers and governments plan better support for the sector. To do this, we reviewed 39 studies about the drivers of early childhood educator burnout from 13 countries, including Australia. This type of a study – called a “systematic review” – is a powerful way for researchers to provide a full and clear summary of what we know about a topic.

What leads to burnout?

We found educator burnout can be driven by a range of factors. Certain personal circumstances make an educator more likely to experience burnout. For example, those with lower household income, or those with increased family responsibility report higher feelings of burnout. This category includes those who are single, widowed, divorced or separated.

Younger, less experienced educators were particularly vulnerable to depersonalisation. Male educators were more likely to experience burnout than their female colleagues.

Educators said poor mental health (particularly depression and mental distress) played a crucial role in their burnout. More socially connected educators who are supported by friends, family and/or their faith were less likely to experience burnout.

How services treat staff matters

Educators from services where there was little or no focus on wellbeing were more likely to report burnout.

This included services with scarce emotional support strategies – such as being able to debrief with peers, or access counselling or coaching. These services also showed a lack of respect for educators’ work-life balance – such as demanding they do extra unpaid hours or not being flexible about leave for family reasons.

Educators discussed the fatigue caused by “surface acting”, where they had to pretend they were (or were not) experiencing certain emotions to please children, staff and parents. For example, an educator might be feeling exhausted and overwhelmed due to their workload, but they had to pretend to feel energetic and enthusiastic when engaging with children and families.

Poor professional relationships were associated with feelings of stress. This included feeling undermined by parents, teaching children with behavioural challenges, and negative relationships with colleagues and directors.

Funding and status

Our research showed educators experienced stress when they had few resources, but very high expectations to produce “quality” learning environments and experiences for children.

Some work was more likely to cause exhaustion, such as constantly trying to prove to authorities they were providing a “quality” service by collecting data. Inadequate income can push educators to leave their positions. It can also lead to reduced motivation, and increase the number of sick days.

Educators’ feelings of burnout were also linked to a belief they had a low status in society. This was more pronounced if they taught younger children, or if they had been working in the sector a long time. Both groups reported being affected by a lack of professional development and opportunities for promotion.

Educators who taught younger children were more likely to feel like they had a lower status in society. Lina Kivaka/Pexels

How can we reduce burnout?

Our review showed there are some effective ways to improve educators’ wellbeing, prevent burnout and keep them from leaving their jobs.

These include coaching, so educators can get feedback and develop their careers, peer mentoring so they know they are not alone and counselling, so they have an emotional outlet to reflect on their work.

If we want to keep educators in these vital roles we need to actively support them to stay.

(Marg Rogers, Senior Lecturer, Early Childhood Education, University of New England)

The author acknowledges the work of Joanne Ng (lead researcher) and Courtney McNamara for their research on the systematic review.

THE CONVERSATION

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Progress made in eradicating pit latrine toilets in SA schools – Motshekga

EDWIN NAIDU

PROGRESS in reducing the number of pit latrines at schools throughout South Africa has been made since 2018, according to Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga, in response to a question in Parliament.

She said sanitation projects at 2 547 schools had been completed out of the 3 397 on the Sanitation Appropriate for Education (SAFE) list.

Responding to a question from Inkatha Freedom Party Member of Parliament, Siphosethu Lindinkosi Ngcobo on 12 April, the Minister said the remaining 850 schools on the list had been allocated to implementing agents, and the sanitation projects are scheduled to be completed in the current financial year.

Ngcobo asked the Minister what the reasons that her department has not been able to eradicate pit latrines sooner, considering that some of her department’s budget for the eradication of pit latrines has been returned to the National Treasury and the fact that her department will not achieve its target to eradicate pit toilets by 2025.

The question followed the death of four-year-old Langalam Viki, who allegedly drowned in a pit latrine toilet in Vaalbank in Eastern Cape in March. The tragedy highlighted the failure of the Department of Basic Education to get rid of pit latrine toilets, despite adopting the minimum uniform norms and standards for public school infrastructure, which banned them at schools in 2013.

The norms and standards created a legal responsibility for the department and provincial departments to eradicate pit latrines at schools. Over the past decade, there have been many horror stories like that of Viki, including 7-year-old Lister Magongwa, who died in 2013 in Limpopo, 5-year-old Oratilwe Dilwane, who died in 2016 in North West, and 6-year-old Siyamthanda Mtunu, who died in 2017 in the Eastern Cape.

Motshekga said that in 1996, the Department of Education assessed the infrastructure at all public schools.

At the time, it was estimated that about 9 000 schools had no appropriate toilets; and were dependent on basic pit toilets.

She said that as part of the SAFE Initiative launched in 2018, an assessment was conducted to determine the number of schools dependent on basic pit toilets.

At the time, it was estimated that the number of schools dependent on basic pit toilets had reduced to 3898.

She said that several of the 3898 schools were small and unviable and subsequently rationalised and closed,” she said.

Further to the rationalisation and closure of small and unviable schools, Motshekga said the SAFE project focused on 3 397; after-schools were not part of the original list in 2018 but were now included.

Civil society organisations, Equal Education and Amnesty International have consistently raised the issue, highlighting the tardiness of the department in swiftly eradicating pit latrine toilets.

The Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen said last month that Human Rights Day could only be commemorated once every child had access to safe and dignified sanitation at school.

“The drowning of our children in pit toilets goes far beyond a human rights violation; it is a horror that no South African should ever be forced to contemplate,” Steenhuisen said.

According to Motshegka, all pit latrines will be eradicated by 2025.

INSIDE EDUCATION

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UKZN partners with ECHO India for Nephrology Outreach Services in KwaZulu-Natal

STAFF REPORTER

UNIVERSITY of KwaZulu-Natal’s School of Clinical Medicine has partnered with an international outreach project known as the Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) Institute. Located at the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, USA) and ECHO India, the project aims to strengthen its reach to healthcare professionals in peripheral hospital sites in KwaZulu-Natal.

Recently, the Adult and Paediatric Nephrology Outreach Programme was launched at UKZN’s Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine.

ECHO Project Manager at UKZN, Dr Serela Ramklass, said: “We are excited to partner with the ECHO Institute and ECHO India that facilitates the link between primary care clinicians at hospitals across the province with specialist faculty from the School of Clinical Medicine.

Collectively, we can improve patients’ health outcomes and quality of life at peripheral sites through shared knowledge on patient assessment and management through mentoring and feedback.”

Team leader for the Adult and Paediatric Nephrology UKZN-ECHO Programme, Associate Professor Rajendra Bhimma, said: “We will focus on nephrology conditions (both in paediatrics and adults) which are most common in our region.

The general discussions will allow all regional and district hospitals to participate. The project will deal with clinical cases presented by doctors either at central or peripheral hospitals and will be followed by a clinicopathological discussion around the case.”

Head of UKZN and Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital Nephrology, Dr Sudesh Hariparshad, noted how South Africa has one nephrologist for a population of 2.5 million.

“It is important to note that Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) in its early stages is a silent disease and may only become apparent when more than 50 percent of the function of the kidneys is lost. Therefore, patients must be screened, managed and referred appropriately at primary healthcare levels.”

Academic Leader of Medical Registrars at UKZN and Head of the Clinical Unit of Paediatrics at the King Edward VIII Hospital, Dr Kimesh Naidoo, presented on Glomerulonephritis (GN). Naidoo highlighted a case study of an eleven-year-old patient who presented at a local clinic with ‘coke-like’ or ‘tea-coloured’ urine, a slight headache and no health issues at school.

He was discharged but presented a week later with mild pedal oedema, high blood pressure (BP), and macroscopic haematuria, which was diagnosed as nephritis.

“The need to determine when such cases require referral to specialists and sub-specialist levels of care with most cases of nephritis can be adequately managed at primary health care levels,” said Naidoo.

INSIDE EDUCATION

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DBE and IEC partner to teach learners about democracy

STAFF REPORTER

THE Department of Basic Education (DBE) and the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) are making inroads in increasing voter registration figures amongst learners through the Schools Democracy Education Programme.

Minister of Basic Education, Mrs Angie Motshekga and IEC Commissioner Judge Dhaya Pillay have launched the 2023 Schools Democracy Month to promote Civic and Democracy Education within the school environment across all nine provinces.

The launch took place at Platinum Village Secondary School in the North West Province on Thursday, 13 April 2023. North West MEC for Education, Ms Viola Motsumi and representatives from various spheres of Government joined Minister Motshegka during the launch.

In her address, Judge Pillay paid attention to the fundamentals of Schools Democracy and Civic Education in the context of the schooling system. According to the IEC, Civic Education is meant to empower young people with critical information to transform communities for the better.

“There has to be a collaborative effort between Government and civil society to maximise the participation of young people in electoral processes, which is one of the most critical mechanisms used to sustain democracy. Young people are future leaders, and their voices should be considered in various spheres of Government. Schools Democracy remains a critical tool to strengthen democracy in communities,” remarked Judge Pillay.

Speaking during the launch, Motshekga said that the celebration of Democracy Month allowed the nation to acknowledge the sacrifices made by various struggle icons in the fight against the apartheid system.

“Their tireless efforts and determination have laid the groundwork for us to continue building a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous society,” she said.

The Minister also indicated that Government would need to work hard to ensure equality and justice by fostering the rule of law.

“Maintaining the rule of law and fighting corruption cannot be overstated. Corruption robs the poor of basic services and resources they desperately need to improve their lives. We must recommit to the prudent use of public resources, which will go a long way in deepening the rebuilding of our justice institutions.”

The Minister added that the launch of Schools Democracy Month initiatives should offer school communities an opportunity to reflect on the progress made thus far in transforming society.

During Freedom Month, the DBE has chosen to host a series of sector-specific community engagements to commemorate and dub this month as Schools Democracy Month.

The IEC, the Department and PEDs will collaborate to promote electoral democracy literacy to young South Africans in public schools nationwide. Schools Democracy Week, which began yesterday (24 April), runs until 30 April to empower South African youth with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for active citizenship.

INSIDE EDUCATION

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BambaLearn App creates a better future for children and teachers

STAFF REPORTER

THE BambaLearn App launched by Afrika Tikkun Bambanani (ATB) last week will allow young children to develop their critical thinking and reach their milestones through play. Created by experts and designed for (and loved by) children ages 2-6 years, this app ensures that age-appropriate milestones are reached through rigorous performance monitoring through games.

These include various educational puzzles, story books, numeracy activities, problem-solving games, literacy, shapes, tracing, counting, and letter and number recognition. This app ensures that no child is left behind by enabling stronger learners to work ahead and providing extra revision and repetition for weaker learners.

The goal is to improve and standardise the ECD content in the country’s ECD centres, empowering practitioners to spend more time with the children. The ATB assessment centre ensures that no child or teacher is left behind. ATB provides tracking sheets and termly reports to monitor learner progression, focusing on critical developmental milestones, screening tools to red-flag learners that require intervention, and practitioner tracking and evaluating.

“The period from birth to six years old is the most vital stage of brain development for children, and these informative years represent a crucial window of opportunity for education. The ATB programme is developed to ensure early childhood care and education that is truly inclusive. It is much more than just preparation for Grade 1; ECD is the foundation for emotional well-being and learning throughout life and is one of the best investments a country can make as it promotes holistic development, gender equality and social cohesion,” said the passionate ATB programme
CEO, Theresa Michael.

INSIDE EDUCATION