The University of Limpopo’s (UL) Sesotho sa Leboa Lexicography Unit and the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) have set aside R950 000 for a research project that will investigate and document 15 dialects spoken by various communities in Limpopo Province, in preserving and enriching the Sesotho sa Leboa language

The research project is led by the Sesotho sa Leboa National Lexicography Unit at UL, a subsidiary of PanSALB, and the project will run for the next 12 months.

Director of Lexicography Unit at UL, Motlokwe Mphahlele, stated that their research aims to source archaic and cultural words and domains in order to capture the meaning of those dialectical words in a General Monolingual Dictionary.

“This is a way of preserving both our dialects and the indigenous knowledge system that our dialects are rich in; some of those dialects will be reduced into writing for the first time,” Mphahlele explained.

The research project has already begun and will involve visits to various districts of Limpopo where various dialects of the Sesotho sa Leboa language are spoken by various communities.

Mphahlele noted that among the 15 dialects that will be documented are SeMamabolo, Setlokwa, Sepulana, Khelobedu, SeMoletji, Sekone, Sehananwa, Sekororo, Setebele-Sotho, and SeMatlala.

The unit has recruited thirteen (13) language interns to serve as project foot soldiers. Promise Themane, the project’s intern and researcher, stated that the opportunity will prepare her to be a researcher and language specialist.

“I am delighted to be a part of the incredible team putting together a Sesotho sa Leboa monolingual dictionary.  It is an honour and a privilege to be entrusted with the retention and preservation of the Northern Sotho language, particularly its dialects, as is the vision of PanSALB. I believe this work will provide me with experience and exposure in the field of research and lexicography,” Themane concluded.  

Thobelang!
Here’s a video from the Sesotho sa Leboa National Lexicography Unit, introducing the language and where it is spoken. We have a full range of dictionaries for Sesotho sa Leboa available for purchase now on our website: https://t.co/kqi3g3wRPB#SesothosaLeboa pic.twitter.com/Ed1JJcEkaR

— SA National Lexicography Units (@SALexiUnits) June 24, 2021

Reuben Maake

The University of Cape Town (UCT) is one of the partners in a €40 million (approximately R718 million) three-year research project that aims to develop and improve next-generation catalysts that will play a large role in decarbonising the aviation sector by creating sustainable aviation fuels.

Professor Michael Claeys, the director of the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Catalysis at UCT’s Department of Chemical Engineering, is the principal investigator of the UCT team that is partnering on the Catalyst Research for Sustainable Kerosene (CARE-O-SENE) project, which is led by Sasol and Germany’s Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (Helmholtz Centre for Materials and Energy, HZB).

CARE-O-SENE is a German–South African research project which will see seven German and South African partners working together on fuel catalysis research and technology development. Their goal is to make large-scale production of green kerosene possible by 2025.

“The aim is to decarbonise the aviation sector and make it sustainable over the long term.”

“The CARE-O-SENE project is about making the future fuel for aviation,” Professor Claeys said. “The aim is to decarbonise the aviation sector and make it sustainable over the long term, by focusing our research efforts on the catalysts that are needed to produce green kerosene on a commercial scale. We are undergoing a huge change in our global energy systems, and every country has to play a role in that. If we can replace kerosene with a defossilised alternative, carbon dioxide emissions will be greatly reduced overall. If we are successful, this research will make it possible for the aviation industry to become carbon neutral.”

The project’s goal of producing sustainable aviation fuels more efficiently relies heavily on Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology, which is a way of converting synthesis gas containing hydrogen and carbon monoxide to hydrocarbon products. 

“While conventionally kerosene is made directly from oil or indirectly from coal or natural gas as fossil-starting materials, sustainable fuels can be made from green hydrogen and carbon dioxide from hard-to-abate industrial, biogenic or atmospheric sources. 

“Our catalysts speed up chemical reactions, making it possible to produce more fuel and improve the quality of the end product. I have worked closely with Sasol, the forerunner in industrial FT technology, for many years, and it is a privilege to work with them and our other international partners on this important project. The technology needed to develop sustainable fuels at large scale from green hydrogen and sustainable carbon sources is an area in which South Africa can become a world leader,” Claeys said.

Funding released in October

With the project’s funding being released in October, the group’s research can now get fully under way. Claeys’ team will ultimately comprise seven or eight people, including two professors, two postdoctoral fellows, two PhD students, and other researchers. The UCT team’s work will focus on finding ways of improving the catalysts being used.

“These catalysts have to be stable over a long period of time so that it makes sense to use them on a large scale. The UCT team studies them at working conditions; we run reactions over the catalysts and have developed tools that allow us to characterise how they change in the reaction environment. We want to understand how the catalyst functions so that we can optimise it and ultimately make it usable on an industrial scale.”

According to Claeys, the three-year timeline is unusual for a project of this scale which aims to commercialise a catalyst, but the team has vast experience and expertise on its side. “Luckily, Sasol is very heavily involved, and they already have a lot of catalysts they’ve developed. 

“So, our international consortium is building on this expertise. If we were starting from zero, this type of project would take 15 to 20 years.  Also, we have to act faster these days in order to make the energy transition a reality.”

Ramaphosa at launch

The CARE-O-SENE project was announced at a ceremony held at Sasol’s global headquarters in Johannesburg in May, with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in attendance. 

Speaking at the launch, President Ramaphosa highlighted the importance of green fuels for global sustainability, and for South Africa’s economic recovery.

“The Catalyst Research for Sustainable Kerosene project focuses on the development of catalysts for green jet fuel.

“This is one of the several areas of cooperation between companies, universities, and government agencies on the technology that will in the end shape and reshape our economies,” Ramaphosa said. 

He added that the government had chosen the economic path of pursuing green hydrogen options “to further develop our economic development. 

This includes the opportunity to supply green hydrogen to the European Union, which is looking to import ten million tons a year by 2030 … The development of a green hydrogen economy is a national economic priority for us.”

Other CARE-O-SENE project partners include the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and INERATEC GmbH, with €30 million in funding provided by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and a further €10 million by Sasol.

Claeys, who’s been working with and researching Fischer-Tropsch processes since doing his PhD thesis on the topic 25 years ago, said South Africa and Sasol are world leaders in the technology, and it is exciting to be part of a team and a project that could play a key role in creating a more sustainable world.

And although the timeline is tight, he thinks CARE-O-SENE is on track to change the world.

“I believe we ought to be able to do it in three years. We are building an excellent team here at UCT, and our partners are leaders in the areas of the work that they are tackling. It’s an honour to work with some of the best in industry and academia on such an important project,” Claeys said.

– SIERAAJ AHMED

This article was accessed from www.news.uct.ac.za.

Researchers have a number of responsibilities when embarking on their work – not least of all to ensure participants are not harmed and are fully heard.

Academic research is not always abstract or theoretical. Nor does it take place in a vacuum. Research in many different disciplines is often grounded in the real world; it aims to understand and address problems that affect people and the environment, such as climate change, poverty, migration or natural hazards.

This means researchers often have to interact with and collect data from a wide range of different people in government, industry and civil society.

These are known as research participants. Over the last 50 years, the relationship between researcher and participant has fundamentally changed.

Previously, research participants were viewed merely as objects of study. They had little input into the research process or its outcomes.

Now, participants are increasingly viewed as collaborative partners and co-creators of knowledge.

There are also many ways in which they can engage with researchers. This shift has been largely driven by the need for research that is relevant to today’s world as well as greater recognition of the diversity of people and cultures, and the internet, social media and other communication tools.

In this context, ethical research practices are more important than ever. However, guidelines and standards for research ethics vary between country and institution.

Expectations may also vary between disciplines. So, it’s a good time to identify the key issues in human research ethics that transcend institutional or disciplinary differences.

Issues to consider

I am a long-time chair of one my institutions’ research ethics committees, and I do research ethics training for researchers and managers across southern Africa. I have also published on research ethics. Based on this experience and drawing from other work done on the topic, I suggest there are five critical ethics issues for researchers to consider.

Managing vulnerability: Research participants, especially in the developing world, may be potentially vulnerable to coercion, exploitation and the exertion of soft power.

This vulnerability may arise because of systemic social, economic, political and cultural inequalities, which are particularly marked in developing countries.

And it may be amplified by inequalities in healthcare and education. Some groups in any society – among them minors, people with disabilities, prisoners, orphans, refugees, and those with stigmatised conditions like HIV and AIDS or albinism – may be more vulnerable than others.

This issue can be managed by considering what the participant group is like and by making sure that the data collection process does not increase any existing vulnerabilities.

Obtaining informed consent: This is a key precondition for participation in any study. Potential participants should first be informed about the nature of the study and the terms and conditions of their participation. That includes details about anonymity, confidentiality and their right to withdraw.

The researcher then needs to ensure that the potential participant understands this information and has the opportunity to ask questions. This should be done in a language and using words that the person can understand.

After these steps are taken, the participant can give informed consent. Informal (verbal or any other non-written) consent is more appropriate if participants are not literate or are particularly vulnerable.

Protecting people: The overarching principle of protecting research participants was articulated in the landmark Belmont Report. The report emerged from a national commission in the US in the 1970s to consider research ethics principles. It called for researchers in any study to demonstrate non-maleficence (the principle of not doing harm) and ensure that they protect both participants and their data.

This can be done at different stages through the research process: by decreasing the potential for risk or harm through careful study design; by providing support or counselling services to participants during or after data collection; and by maintaining confidentiality and anonymity in data collection and reporting. Finally, personal data must be protected or de-identified if they are being stored for later analysis.

Managing risk: Potential sources of risk or harm to participants should, as far as possible, be identified and mitigated when the study is being designed. Risk may arise in any study, either at the time of data collection or afterwards. Sometimes this is unexpected, such as where data collection becomes more dangerous due to civil unrest or under COVID-19 restrictions.

It is important that researchers provide the details of support or counselling service for participants in case these are needed. Any trade-offs between risk and benefits can be considered through a risk-benefits analysis. But researchers should be realistic about any potential benefits that may result from their study.

Championing human rights: Researchers have responsibilities: to their disciplines, funders, institutions and participants. This means they should not merely be passive analysers of data.

Instead they should be positive role models in society by seeking solutions, advocating for change and upholding human rights and social justice through their actions.

Research activities, especially those involving participants, should address and find solutions for local and global problems. They ought to result in positive societal and environmental outcomes. This should be the context for all types of research activities in a 21st century world.

Making it happen

Increasingly, there are national and international codes of research ethics, guiding researchers in different fields. An example is the 2010 Singapore Statement on Research Integrity.

It emphasises the principles of honesty, accountability, professional courtesy and fairness, and good stewardship of data. These are the characteristics not just of ethical researchers, but of good researchers too.These principles and processes should make research less risky and protect the rights of participants by building trust between researchers and participants.

These principles can also help in making research more transparent, accountable and equitable – critical in an increasingly divided and unequal world.

Jasper Knight, Professor of Physical Geography, University of the Witwatersrand

This article is republished from The Conversation.

Former Wits Chancellor and Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke says the university has produced great leaders in the past and must continue doing so in future.

Universities in South Africa have a leading role to play in the socio-political landscape of South Africa, where a dire lack of political leadership is dragging the country down.

Moseneke, who said recently that South Africans need to “rethink how we relate to the state” and move away from “statism”.

“We need to go back and tach our people how to look inward; how to grow their own vegetables; how to build their own homes; how to paint them when they get dirty; how to pick up their litter, and their dignity will be restored – not by a ruling elite that is ever-evasive and ever-and often unethical.

“We must, in other words, cultivate a system of progressive activism, because we have no reason to trust those who call us ‘our people’, and in vain promise us that they will eradicate triple burdens. We have no business in believing in the ruling elite. We have no business to be this gullible,” said Moseneke.

Speaking at Wits University’s Founders Tea during the university’s Centenary Celebration, Moseneke said universities must take a lead in the reformation of the country.

“Universities must remain a safe crucible of independent and critical thought. You must remain a bastion of research and new knowledge. You must continue to hone generational succession of leadership that is informed, that is ethical, that is people centric, that is development centric. 

“A true university must be an incubator for social, industrial and financial innovation. A true place of higher learning and teaching must all the time be asking ‘why all the poverty around us? Why is poverty increasing? Why is it so stubborn? Why is it so endemic? Why are there fewer and fewer people who are capable of being innovative – creating new wealth and new ways of better living?’.”

Universities must also be probing the social arrangements that continue to burden the country, like why are our public institutions so fickle, so susceptible to subversion and inaction, and, why is there such a “damning leadership” deficiency in the country?

“If you care to watch the discussion in parliament, you would know just the level – the low, low level – of leadership that we have to stomach and suffer.”

Quoting former Wits Vice-Chancellor, Professor Adam Habib who said South Africa’s single biggest bane or curse is a paucity of quality leadership, Moseneke said that Habib should have qualified this statement by saying there is no quality leadership “within politics”.

“Our biggest curse is just not having the kind of leaders that we need most at a time that we have to make the most of our conceptual notions of our just, good democratic society.”

Naming the names of several leaders who came from Wits University, such as Nelson Mandela, Robert Sobukwe and Duma Nokwe, Moseneke said that Wits has produced great leaders in the past, and should be able to produce them again in future.

“So as Wits celebrate’s its 100th year, it must continue to produce more and more special leaders, because that is what we need most.”

Following up on Moseneke’s speech, Wits Vice-Chancellor Professor Zeblon Vilakazi said while South Africa has great leaders, they are not in politics. Naming leading academics such as Professors Glenda Grey and Shabir Madhi who helped government mitigate the impact of COVID, Vilakazi said you can find many “wellsprings” of leadership in the academic and private sector, and that unlike in the past, you don’t find the top students going into politics anymore.

“The Greek warrior leader Pericles said: ‘If you run away from politics, politics will come to you’, and ‘if you are not interested in politics, you will find yourself being ruled by your intellectual inferior’.”

This article first appeared on Wits University website.

Canada’s House of Commons unanimously voted to approve a measure condemning the country’s notoriously abusive government-funded residential schools for indigenous children as a genocide on Thursday.

“Today I lift up survivors, families, and communities who have sacrificed so much in order for people across Canada to know the truth; that what happened in residential schools was a genocide,” Winnipeg Center MP Leah Gazan, who introduced the motion, said in a statement following the vote. She thanked her fellow lawmakers for “recognizing the truth of Canada’s history.” 

“I look forward to working with the government to ensure the will of parliament is honored by formally recognizing residential schools as a genocide,” she continued, adding that “survivors deserve no less.”

The motion states that the schools, which the Canadian government forced some 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children to attend between the 1870s and 1997, met the UN’s definition of genocide, meaning an intention to destroy “in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” 

While popular understanding of the term generally interprets it to mean killing members of the targeted group, the definition also includes “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,” and “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” 

While Gazan had previously attempted to introduce such a measure in June, it failed to receive unanimous assent the first time. Lawmakers’ shift in opinion could be attributed to the words of Pope Francis, who used the word “genocide” to describe the schools – many of which were run by the Catholic Church – after his visit to Canada in July.

A 2015 report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission detailed egregious physical and sexual abuse, poor living conditions, and malnutrition at residential schools, describing them as “cultural genocide.” Some 3,200 pupils were found to have died from tuberculosis and other diseases, though the real number is believed to be higher. Despite some 37,951 claims by survivors of sexual or physical abuse, fewer than 50 former staffers were ever convicted of abusing the students. 

The schools uprooted indigenous children from their families and communities and sought to assimilate them into Canadian society, including through religious conversion. While the Roman Catholic Church operated about three-fifths of the schools, they did not have a monopoly on converting the natives – the Anglican Church operated a quarter of the schools and the United and Presbyterian churches split the rest. Students were strongly discouraged from adhering to their cultural traditions, often even receiving new names.

–

An Australian state has voted to pass a bill that would introduce harsh penalties for men who remove condoms during sex without the consent of their partner, an act colloquially known as ‘stealthing.’

The South Australian (SA) parliament passed the bill on Wednesday, joining other Australian states including ACT, Tasmania, Victoria, and New South Wales, which have also outlawed the practice. Anyone convicted of stealthing could potentially face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The legislation, dubbed the Criminal Law Consolidation (Stealthing) Amendment Bill, was introduced by SA MP Connie Bonaros, who described ‘stealthing’ in a statement as a “repugnant” and “disgusting act of betrayal.”

“Such grotesque acts of indecency deserve to be treated in the same manner as rape and a crime punishable by terms of imprisonment,” Bonaros said.

A study of 10,000 people conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology last month reportedly found that as many as one in three women and one in five gay men had been stealthed at least once.

While it’s expected that the introduction of criminal liability for the act of “stealthing” may deter potential offenders, some have raised concerns that not many people are even aware of the term.

Stealthing is a particularly intricate type of sexual violence because the definition, by default, means that you have consented to having protected sex with the perpetrator, meaning you probably had positive feelings towards that person,” the director of the Australia Institute’s Centre for Sex and Gender Equality, Chanel Contos, told The Guardian last month.

She went on to call for the introduction of a national curriculum on consent and respectful relationships and to harmonize Australia’s laws on stealthing in order to “facilitate education and public awareness that stealthing is a form of sexual assault.”

– RT.Com 

South Africa now has a new 24-hour, state-of-the-art regional space weather centre, which was launched in Hermanus, Western Cape.

Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister Dr Blade Nzimande, described the launch as a historic development and illustration of the country’s excellence in science.

“It is yet another demonstration that the DSI, together with its agencies, continues to respond to the socio-economic challenges of our country by using science, technology and innovation as a catalyst and catalyser for economic development.”

The department’s entity, the South African Space Agency (SANSA), developed the new centre, which is also the only one in Africa.

SANSA’s space weather centre provides an important service to the nation by monitoring the sun and its activity, and by providing space weather forecasts, warnings, alerts, and environmental data on space weather conditions.

Through SANSA, Nzimande said the department now has managed to improve the coordination of South Africa’s space arena to maximise the benefits of current and planned space activities.

During the recent floods in KwaZulu-Natal, Nzimande said the agency provided satellite imagery to the National Disaster Management Centre and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) to support the disaster response and understanding of the level of damage.

The same service was provided at the Jagersfontein mine waste dam that collapsed.

“The space weather capability that we are launching is a direct response to our good safety track record, which led to the International Civil Aviation Organisation selecting SANSA as one of the two regional centres to provide space weather services, including solar storm forecasts and warnings to the global aviation sector,” Nzimande said.

Development agenda

The unveiling is part of the overall strategy to position science, technology and innovation at the centre of the country’s developmental agenda.

SANSA’s mandate is to promote and use space and cooperation in space-related activities, foster research in space science, advance scientific engineering and develop human capabilities in space science.

It also includes supporting for the creation of an environment conducive to industrial development in space technologies within the framework. 

The establishment, which was completed by end of September 2022, took three years to build.

The centre includes infrastructure development, instrumentation deployment, product and service development, and skills capability development. 

The total investment, according to the Minister, amounted to R107.5 million over the three years, which included a ring-fenced establishment grant of R70.89 million received from the DSI and R36.6 million invested directly by SANSA.

Space

Through SANSA’s researchers, South Africa has a growing international footprint and impact on new research within the space sector.

SANSA has since ensured its increased focus on transforming the space sector through skills development and public outreach.

“SANSA also has a role in international space cooperation, for example, we are currently negotiating with NASA for the establishment of a tracking and telemetry station in Matjiesfontein in support of future lunar exploration,” the Minister said.

The space agency, according to Nzimande, continues to implement activities targeting women in science and previously disadvantaged youth, while inspiring future space scientists and entrepreneurs through its public engagement programme.

“Thousands of learners have, through the years, engaged with SANSA experts at science and career festivals, school visits, science centres, and now even online.”

The Minister said he is heartened to witness the contribution of SANSA to the people and the global space industry.

“Examples of this important economic role of SANSA include its work in the agricultural economy through the use of open and big data for vegetation condition and stress monitoring, crop and other vegetation assessment, estimation of cropped arable land and production area statistics, above-ground biomass and yield estimation, and agricultural drought assessment and monitoring.”

Meanwhile, he said the agency contributes significantly to the national economy and job creation.

“We must promote this centre as part of tourism,” said Nzimande. 

– SAnews.gov.za

The Western Cape High Court heard arguments on both the challenges and opportunities regarding the collaboration schools model, which the provincial government argued makes high quality no-fee education available to over 12 300 learners in poor communities.

Today is day 2 of our #PublicSchoolDemocracy case. We are asking the court to:

1. Declare that the introduction of collaboration schools, donor-funded schools and intervention facilities clashes with the Constitution. #WCSchoolsLaw https://t.co/LOs4XrKfwK pic.twitter.com/0BYZxpLENJ

— Equal Education (@equal_education) November 3, 2022

“When the action was instituted, our collaboration schools were just getting off the ground. Since then, the model has produced excellent results, with learners having access to incredible learning opportunities.

Our collaboration school donors have contributed to the value of over R325 million to our schools to date, a contribution to our education sector that might otherwise not have been made. Of the schools using the model, 10 are new schools, offering over 8 300 no-fee school places to learners.”, provincial MEC of Education David Maynier said.

We must stop SADTU/Equal Education from shutting down our collaboration schools!

Read more here: https://t.co/KmPh2wrXFX pic.twitter.com/dOFKrTLbAp

— David Maynier (@DavidMaynier) November 3, 2022

Lawyers representing Maynier urged the court to stop Equal Education, and the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) from shutting down collaboration schools.

Although parents must give permission for learners to be sent to these facilities, learners themselves are not given enough of a say in this decision. There is no court oversight in this process, which is very important because of the serious risk to a learners’ rights. pic.twitter.com/yynLuiEwGq

— Equal Education (@equal_education) November 2, 2022

2. Declare that collaboration schools, donor-funded schools, and intervention facilities clash with the South African Schools Act.
3. Declare collaboration schools, donor-funded schools, and intervention facilities unlawful. #PublicSchoolDemocracy #WCSchoolsLaw

— Equal Education (@equal_education) November 3, 2022

EE is asking the court to:
* Declare that the introduction of collaboration schools, donor-funded schools and intervention facilities clashes with the Constitution. #WCSchoolsLaw #PublicSchoolDemocracy

— Equal Education (@equal_education) November 2, 2022

Equal Education (EE) is represented by the Equal Education Law Centre (EELC).

Western Cape Education MEC David Maynier says it is unfortunate that an organisation like Equal Education is challenging the validity of the province’s collaboration schools model, which he said makes high quality no-fee education available to learners in poor communities.

On Wednesday Equal Education (EE), represented by the Equal Education Law Centre (EELC) presented heads of arguments in the Western Cape High Court challenging “potentially dangerous changes” made to Western Cape education law. 

“When the action was instituted, our collaboration schools were just getting off the ground. Since then, the model has produced excellent results, with learners having access to incredible learning opportunities.

Our collaboration school donors have contributed to the value of over R325 million to our schools to date, a contribution to our education sector that might otherwise not have been made. Of the schools using the model, 10 are new schools, offering over 8 300 no-fee school places to learners, the Western Cape education department said through a media statement. 

The Western Cape Provincial School Education Amendment Act of 2018 (the Amendment Act) has changed the Western Cape education law in major ways, the court heard. 

“It has made it possible for two new types of schools to be established – collaboration and donor-funded schools – where donors and private entities are given significant control of public schools in a way that undermines the principles of democratic governance and accountability,” Equal Education argued Wednesday. 

Equal Education says the Amendment Act has also made possible the establishment of intervention facilities for learners found guilty of serious misconduct. Learners sent to intervention facilities can be separated from their family and community for up to a year.

“We are challenging the introduction of these three institutions because the law around them is vague, is inconsistent with the Constitution and in conflict with the South African Schools Act (SASA),” Equal Education and Equal Education Law Centre said in a joint statement.  

Maynier said his department is seeing a positive trend in systemic test and matric results at schools, but said it is not the only reason the model is valuable. 

He added that learners at collaboration schools also benefit from access to opportunities made possible by the involvement of operating partners.

The involvement of operating partners allows additional resources to be brought in, like career guidance counsellors and mentors, partnerships with non-governmental organisations promoting the mental health and wellbeing of learners, resources for remedial education, teacher training, support for the school’s financial management, and other interventions to support teaching and learning.

“The model has also allowed communities to become more involved in establishing schools that serve the unique needs of their community. This kind of direct parental involvement can only benefit our education system, and our learners.

“One need only look at collaboration schools like Apex High School, Jakes Gerwel Technical High School, and Boundary Primary School, to see the benefits that the model offers, Maynier said. 

The NGO told the court that it is not opposed to testing innovative education models, but recognise that experimentation in education is a very sensitive undertaking as it involves the lives and futures of learners.

Click here to listen to Tarryn Cooper-Bell, Senior Attorney at Equal Education Law Centre.

The case continues on Thursday.

– Inside Education 

BERNARD SATHEKGE

THERE has been a significant increase of learners both full-time and part-time registered for the exams this year.

Close to a million South African matric pupils registered for the 2022 final exams in all the nine provinces.

According to Department of Basic Education, there has been a gradual increase in the number of full-time enrolments in 2022, as compared to the previous years.

The number of full-time enrolments increased from 733 198 in 2021 to 755 981 in 2022.

This is an increase of 22 783 candidates.

“The increase in learners enrollment for matric this year came out as a surprise. This allays the concern that there would have been a significant dropout of leaners post the Covid-19 pandemic. But that is not the case,” according to DBE Director-General, Mweli Mathanzima.

The number of part-time learners has also increased from 163 965 in 2021 to 167 479 in 2022.

In addition, a total of 193 question papers will be administered at 6 912 examination centres.

These examination centres have been approved for the administration of the October and November 2022 exams.

As part of managing the security of question papers and managing risks, examination centres have been audited and categorized according to their risk profile and will be monitored accordingly during the conduct of the examination.

The DBE states that a total of 52 811 markers are appointed for the marking of the November 2022 NSC Examinations.

This marks an increase of 11 215 markers, compared to 41 596 markers in 2021.

The increase in markers is in keeping with the increase in the learner enrolments.

In a way, the recruitment of more markers will enhance meeting the deadline of marking exam papers on time.

Mathanzima says the DBE liaises closely with all nine PEDs to identify any challenges or security risks in a timeous manner to ensure that no candidate is disadvantaged in any manner and to ensure watertight security of question papers.

“To ensure an irregularity-free examination, the DBE has stepped up its security across all points in the question paper chain, based on a continuous review of all examination processes,” says Mathanzima.

In addition, all learners sitting for the NSC examinations, and their parents will sign a ‘Commitment Agreement’ to maintain honesty and not to participate in irregularities during the writing of examination.

The Commitment Agreement binds the learners and parents to follow the rules relating to the examination.

In line with this agreement, learners and parents are obliged to make any irregularity related information immediately available to the school principal or the DBE hotline.

Further, they are also expected to surrender cell phones and any other related device if there is an allegation of involvement in an act of dishonesty.

Learners are briefed on all the rules and regulations pertaining to the examinations and on the consequences, should they be implicated in irregularities.

Prisoner matric candidates are also ready for exams. Preparations for special needs for people with disabilities are also put ready in place in order for smooth process without any hindrances.

Although all systems look sharp and green to allow this year’s matric final exams, what appeared to be a threat and likely to derail exams is the current problem of Eskom power outages.

Eskom is battling to restore stability to its generation fleet as breakdowns once again skyrocket to record levels, and this could trigger smooth running of matric exams.

However, the DBE says it is continuously liaising closely with Eskom, the security cluster, PEDs and other relevant stakeholders to manage the risks posed by loadshedding and other security related matters.

Mathanzima says that the DBE can confidently state that it is fully prepared to administer the November 2022 examinations based on the principles of fairness, reliability, validity and integrity.

Last year’s matric results came as a surprise when compared to the previous year’s matric results.

The Matric Class of 2021 achieved a national pass rate of 76.4% which is an increase of 0.2% when compared to 2020.

Even though 2021 Matrics were the most impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, their results showed their resilience. However, education experts calculated that although 2022 has been free from the pandemic such as Covid-19, this year’s matriculants are likely to result in better marks.

Experts says the current late disruptions from Eskom power crisis, will not dealt a major blow as DBE hasbeen aware and surely got contingency plans in place.

The National Senior Certificate (NSC) is a South African Qualification achieved by learners who pass Grade 12 (Matric) in High School.

Students generally complete an NSC in 3 to 5 years, which includes studies done in 3 Grades: Grade 10, Grade 11 and Grade 12.

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