Athletes in preparation for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics Games in Japan are already receiving their Covid-19 jabs.

The University of Johannesburg (UJ) shotput champion, Jason van Rooyen, recently received his jab in preparation of the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Van Rooyen is one of the UJ athletes selected to represent South Africa in shotput.

READ: ‘Siyaya eJapan, Tokyo here we come,’ say UJ sportsmen, women in SA squad

The shotput star said he was vaccinated at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.

“I received the booking via South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) because they are arranging vaccinations for all the athletes heading to Japan.

“These days, a vaccine is just like a passport. It is important that we keep ourselves and the rest of the world safe by vaccinating,” said van Rooyen.

Van Rooyen said some of the side effects he has felt since getting the jab include headaches.

The young athlete said he has experienced really bad headaches and that he has been feeling very tired.

“But I think that is the normal thing that happens when a vaccine is injected into the body,” he said.

Athletes around the world are getting vaccinated to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Other countries such as Australia, have been inoculating athletes heading to the big games since April this year.

In South Africa, the vaccination of athletes only started late May at various vaccination sites throughout the country.

According to the Department of Health, its medical team has worked very close with SASCOC staff to contact the athletes and arrange vaccination dates and times to ensure an efficient and smooth vaccination process before July 2021.

Van Rooyen said he is eyeing a top 10 ranking in the world.

The start athlete gave an impressive performance in the 2021 USSA Championships in mid-May when UJ held the competition at the Athletics Stadium.

In the competition, van Rooyen equalled the South African record of 20.40m throw in shotput.

He said he has set his sights on the podium and hopes to bring home a medal.

“I want to be in the final at the Olympic Games. It would be really great to stand on the Olympics podium as evidence of my hard work here at home,” he said.

READ: PROFILE: Africa’s current discus champion to compete in Tokyo Paralympic Games

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NYAKALLO TEFU|

Teacher unions continue to anxiously wait for feedback from the department of health and the department of basic education on when the vaccination of educators will commence.

The added anxiety comes after the vaccination of educators was put on hold following the announcement on Sunday by the department of health that over two million Johnson and Johnson (J&J) vaccines are contaminated.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Saturday ordered that over 60 million J&J vaccine doses be discarded after concerns that they could be contaminated at the manufacturing plant.

“We are hoping to hear from the department today, we have heard over the weekend about the contaminated vaccines being destroyed,” said spokesperson of the National Professional Teachers Organization of South Africa (Naptosa), Basil Manuel.

According to pharmaceutical company Aspen, Johnson & Johnson will provide 300 000 doses of the vaccine for South African teachers within days.

Manuel said Naptosa has heard of the 300 000 unaffected vaccines will arrive in South Africa soon, “however, we don’t know if they have been organised to vaccinate educators, so we wait to hear from the department of health and the department of basic education”.

Since April, teacher unions across the country have been calling for the vaccination of teachers who, despite learners coming in on a rotational basis, have been going to school on a daily.

READ: SADTU calls for vaccination of teachers

Last Monday, Inside Education reported that teacher unions confirmed that educators, cleaners and other support staff at public schools in South Africa will be vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus starting 9 June 2021.

Unions said at least 500,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccines have been secured for the education sector.

“We have always called for government to use vaccines which have a record of effectiveness in their use. The J&J vaccines together with the other ones our government chose – do not have such,” said Education Union of South Africa’s Kabelo Mahlobongwane.

Mahlobongwane said they are not shocked at the news that vaccines have been destroyed because they were contaminated.

“We actually suspect that the quantity we are being told of never even existed before. These were just numbers that were announced to give the country false hope,” said Mahlobongwane.

READ: Teacher unions push to have teachers vaccinated in June

The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu)’s Mugwena Maluleke said the decision by both departments was based on findings by the FDA.

“We still expect that teachers will still be prioritised, in terms of the 300 000 vaccines that have been approved, teachers will be first in line to receive,” said Maluleke.

The union leaders told Inside Education that both the department of basic education and department of health have not communicated with them on the progress of vaccines thus far. However, they remain hopeful that educators will get vaccinated.

Unions have also called for the vaccination of educators to be completed before learners return to school on a full-time basis from 26 July 2021.

“The vaccination of educators should be given the urgency it deserves. Private institutions have already started with taking necessary steps, whereas our public education management is still sleeping,” said Mahlobongwane.

READ: Union concerned about DBE’s ability to manage full-time return to primary schools

South Africa and other African countries have been in a constant battle of getting access to Covid-19 vaccines since the beginning of the pandemic. African countries continue look for solutions in order to ensure that even middle- and low-income countries can afford to vaccinate their populations.

On Sunday, President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the Group of Seven (G7) Summit in the United Kingdom, where he pleaded with rich countries to sign the Agreement of Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver as the world fights the Covid-19 pandemic.

One of the challenges faced by African states is the negative impact that intellectual property (IP) barriers have had in the past. Leaders of these countries have asked developed nations to allow African countries to scale up the manufacturing and supply of lifesaving Covid-19 medical tools across the world.

According to the organisation Doctors without Borders, the World Trade Organization (WTO) can and should invoke a waiver of certain IP rights on these Covid-19 technologies under WTO rules. The not-for-profit organisation argues that the pandemic is an exceptional global crisis and thus, for humanitarian issues, the need to make profits should be set aside.

South Africa and India also submitted a landmark proposal earlier this year to the WTO requesting that WTO members waive four categories of IP rights including copyright, industrial designs, patents and undisclosed information under the TRIPS until the majority of the world population receives effective vaccines and develops immunity to Covid-19.

Ramaphosa said the proposed TRIPS waiver is a temporary, targeted and proportional response, which recognises the unprecedented nature of the pandemic.

He said the TRIPS waiver is to assist countries especially middle and low-income nations to be able to access vaccines.

“We call on G7 members to support the waiver and engage in negotiations that will result in a balanced outcome that massively and rapidly expands production in Africa and across the world,” said Ramaphosa.

Ramaphosa said negotiations must be concluded soon because the cost of Covid-19 infections is measured in people’s lives.

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The University of Cape Town (UCT), the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) and the University of Johannesburg (UJ) have been ranked the three top universities in the continent with Stellenbosch University, University of Pretoria and Rhodes University holding the fifth, seventh and 10th places respectively.

This is according to the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings 2022 released his month. For the 2022 academic year, the company ranked 1 300 institutions around the world, including nine from South Africa.

The 2022 QS rankings show that UCT dropped six places globally to 226th compared with the previous year’s rankings, while UJ climbed five places from last year’s global ranking position. The QS rankings show that Wits fell 21 places from the previous year rankings.

UJ Vice-Chancellor Professor Tshilidzi Marwala said not only has UJ climbed five places from last year’s global ranking position, but his university is the only university in South Africa that moved up in these rankings.

“UJ is now ranked at third position in South Africa and climbed from fourth to third place in Africa, the university has also retained its position among the Top 500 [ranked 434] universities in the world,” said Marwala.

UCT Vice-Chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng said despite UCT dropping six places compared to last year, the university remains the best university in Africa.

“This position puts UCT among the top 18% of universities worldwide and is tied with Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn in Germany, the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom and the University of Virginia in the United States,” said Phakeng.

Adding that the academic reputation indicator remains UCT’s strongest performer.

“This is the indicator that contributes the most (40%) to an institution’s overall score,” she said.

READ: SA universities fall in global rankings

The QS World University Rankings are based on six performance indicators, ranging from global academic and employer reputation, research output and quality, internationalisation, as well as teaching and learning.

The organisation said academic reputation remains the highest weighting of any metric. It collates the expert opinions of over 130 000 individuals in the higher education space regarding teaching and research quality at the world’s institutions, said the organisation.

Marwala said UJ’s high overall score was achieved by its increased cohort of international staff and students, which is well above the global average and leading nationally.

He added that the university also achieved improvements in the scores for the research and academic reputation indicators, climbing 34 places from 623 to 589 in the world for the “Citations per Faculty” category.

“The latest global rankings reaffirm the fact that our academic programmes remain strong and relevant, especially when one considers that the pool of competing universities in this global ranking system has increased, ranking 1300 universities instead of the usual 1000 universities as in previous editions,” said Marwala.

He added that these latest rankings demonstrate UJ’s resilience as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) thought leader in Africa, and how the university has had to be agile in adapting to the ever-changing landscape.

“This was also because in embracing technological advancements, our students have been at the centre of this innovative learning approach,” said Marwala.

READ: Prof Tshilidzi Marwala on jobs of the future, being number one and the Auckland Park education precinct

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Ann Bernstein

“If you can’t solve the problem of getting young people into work, it may not matter what other problems you do solve.”

Paul Romer, Nobel economics laureate

The latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) statistics confirm a shocking reality: three out of every four South Africans (74.7%) between the ages of 15 and 24 who want a job cannot find one. For those between the ages of 25 and 34, things are somewhat better, yet still the worst they have ever been: more than half (51.4%) of them are unemployed.

Tackling this crisis by accelerating labour-intensive growth has to be the country’s top priority.

Unless young people become part of the employed workforce in much larger numbers soon, political leaders will become increasingly dysfunctional, human potential will be wasted and hopes of creating a stabler, more inclusive and prosperous country will remain mere pipe dreams.

South Africa’s expanded unemployment rate is 43.2%, the highest it has been since the start of the QLFS in 2008. The data unequivocally reveal that the labour market remains especially inaccessible to young workers. The overall youth unemployment rate sits at 57.5%. The 6.8 million young people unable to find jobs constitute the majority (59.2%) of the unemployed.

READ: South Africa’s youth unemployment crisis – a ticking time bomb

The Covid-19 pandemic has turned what was already a crisis into a catastrophe. The severe 7% GDP contraction suffered last year prompted a huge increase in the number of jobless young people. The youth unemployment rate rose by more than five percentage points as a result of the pandemic, while nearly 1 million fewer young people are in employment now. On average, 444 young people have joined the unemployment queues every day since the start of the pandemic.

Too many young people are disconnected from economic opportunities – and they feel this exclusion in deeply personal and damaging ways.

As one young person put it: “You feel as if you’re useless. You don’t belong to earth; you aren’t even a human being.”Better learning outcomes are often seen as the best way of improving young people’s employment prospects. It is true that upward social mobility is strongly correlated with education levels in South Africa

Being jobless also affects a person’s future employability. Employment is a form of education and training, providing workers with knowledge, skills, discipline, networks and other capabilities that cannot be gained through formal educational instruction. This is what US economist Paul Romer means when he refers to “work as school”, and it is the reason employers often prefer people with work experience over those who have none.

The long-term unemployed, by contrast, become increasingly ill-suited to the needs of the economy – their training becomes less relevant, their skills deteriorate and their ability to signal their workplace readiness lessens. They are therefore doubly disadvantaged in a country where too few jobs are being created.

Better learning outcomes are often seen as the best way of improving young people’s employment prospects. It is true that upward social mobility is strongly correlated with education levels in South Africa. However, the country’s educational attainments remain extremely low: only 37% of pupils who start Grade 1 together will pass matric; 14% will obtain university-entrance exemption; and only 4% of the original group will receive a tertiary qualification within six years of leaving school. This is a devastating underperformance for an education system.

The situation is worst for those who are not in employment, education or training (NEET). Altogether, 9 million (43.6%) young South Africans are classified as NEETs. These are people who are excluded from the economy and are struggling to access it.

Even among the working youth, more than a quarter (27.6%, or 1.4 million) are informally employed. This points to further disadvantages experienced by the youngest segments of the workforce. A formal job is much more likely to be a sustained route out of poverty than an informal job, given the importance of on-the-job training for future employability.

Taken together, these numbers reflect a disturbing truth: this is no country for young people.

As politicians commemorate Youth Day on Wednesday, it is important to note the policy choices they have made that have created a catastrophic situation facing the vast majority of young South Africans. Our current approach to economic growth and jobs, as well as education, is failing young people. As a matter of urgency, we need to rethink our approach to the labour market, especially in regard to absorbing unskilled young jobseekers into formal positions.

Towards a bigger, bolder reform approach

Policy reform is urgently required. If we are to make a significant dent in these catastrophic youth unemployment levels, we have to change the rules and regulations that shape the way our economy functions so that it grows much faster and creates jobs far more rapidly than was the case long before Covid-19 struck.

Given the depth of the youth unemployment crisis, there is no plausible strategy for rapidly reducing unemployment in the short term. A job creation drive launched by President Cyril Ramaphosa is under way, but is still in its infancy.

The biggest component of this state-driven initiative consists of placing young people in schools for a few months. Despite the president’s seal of approval, the jury is still out on the likely success of this expensive exercise.We need more bold signals that will encourage the investment and expansion of existing firms if we are to create enough jobs in the future

However, what must be grasped is that the scale of any public employment drive will be too small to make more than a shallow dent in the massive challenge we confront. Unless these education opportunities provide useful work experiences and on-the-job training, they will fail to make much difference to the long-term prospects of the young people who participate in them.

There is, however, considerable scope for reforms that would improve the performance of the economy and deepen the inclusiveness of growth by increasing employment.

We need more bold signals that will encourage the investment and expansion of existing firms if we are to create enough jobs in the future. The bottom line is that firms need to be incentivised to hire young, unskilled workers instead of being encouraged to switch to mechanisation and automation.

We need reforms that will create space for new, more labour-intensive activities to emerge and grow, including legal exemptions for small and new firms from collective bargaining agreements to which they are not party, as well as rebalanced collective bargaining structures to provide greater representation of smaller firms’ concerns.

We should expand and extend the employment tax incentive to a wider range of workers and for a longer period, and introduce modest reforms to hiring and firing. Making it easier and less risky for firms to terminate new employees during their probationary periods, for example, would help remove risk from the employment decision, especially with regard to new, inexperienced young workers.

Given that these changes represent a significant policy shift and will most likely face considerable antagonism in the governing party alliance, the Centre for Development and Enterprise has proposed an experimental special economic zone designed for labour-intensive manufacturing in which labour market rules would be somewhat liberalised to test the proposition that jobs would be created under those conditions.

We also need to start tackling youth unemployment on as many fronts as possible by reforming the education system, improving the way young people are trained for potential jobs, bringing in skills from all over the world to help train South Africans and grow the economy, and removing all structural constraints on growth. We need to do whatever is possible to get as many young people as we can into formal jobs.

South Africa has a growing youth population. This should be a resource we can tap to generate growth and contribute to development – what economists call a “demographic dividend”.

If we do not alter the course of our economy, however, we will reap a demographic disaster instead.

Ann Bernstein is the executive director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise

The post Youth unemployment: A catastrophe appeared first on Inside Education.

NYAKALLO TEFU|

President Cyril Ramaphosa has congratulated National Chairperson of the African National Congress (ANC) Gwede Mantashe after he obtained a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree.

The Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy obtained his MBA from the private higher education institution Mancosa (Management College of Southern Africa) on Saturday.

Studying for an MBA requires a lot of discipline, hard work, & ability to stick to time. However, when you achieve your MBA, you don’t feel the length of the journey. It takes courage & it is an important qualification. I encourage young people to study pic.twitter.com/8lpuuIHgXu

— Gwede Mantashe (@GwedeMantashe1) June 5, 2021

“Studying for an MBA requires a lot of discipline, hard work and the ability to stick to time. However, when you achieve your MBA, you do not feel the length of the journey,” said Mantashe.

President Ramaphosa took to Twitter to congratulate Minister Mantashe.

“This demonstrates to us that education remains the most powerful weapon for transforming our future,” said Ramaphosa.

The 65-year-old holds a master’s degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, a Bachelor of Commerce (Bcom) Degree from the University of South Africa, where he also completed a Bcom Honors.

Ramaphosa said as the ANC national chair, co-chair of the Economic Cluster in Cabinet and Minister, he managed to dedicate time to complete his studies.

“We are proud of you Mqwathi for this academic achievement and we remain inspired by your unwavering commitment to lifelong living,” added Ramaphosa.

It takes courage and it is an important qualification. I encourage young people to study,” added Mantashe.

The post Gwede Mantashe obtains MBA at 65 appeared first on Inside Education.

NALEDI SHOTA| 

Julius Malema, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) president has called for the shut down of schools and crèches as the country inches closer to the third wave of the coronavirus. 

Speaking at a press briefing on Thursday Malema said schools needed to close “immediately” before children die in numbers. 

According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, the country “ technically entered the 3rd wave today [Thursday] as the national 7-day moving average incidence (5959 cases) now exceeds the new wave threshold as defined by the Ministerial Advisory Committee”.

Malema said it was so painful to lose elderly people in the first and second wave.

Imagine now when we are going to have to bury kids, he said.

READ: GDE concerned about the rising number of Covid-19 cases at schools in the province

“Our children are going to die. We give the minister seven days to close schools. Failure to do so we will have to close schools ourselves as the EFF because we are not going to allow our children to die. We are not going to allow that.

“Can you imagine now when we are going to have to go and bury kids the way we were burying old people,” said Malema.

Malema said it was becoming clearer now that children are affected by the virus as more and more were testing positive for the virus. 

“Let our children be safe, we will rework the programme the same way we did in the past to get them to cope with this crisis we are confronted with. It is going to be more dangerous, children are sick and children are testing positive,” he said. 

In March last year, when Covid-19 cases were increasing, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the closure of schools.

The first group of learners ended up getting back in class in June while the last group went back in August.

The department of basic education trimmed the curriculum for grades 1 to 11 in order to make up for the time they had lost in class. 

In recent weeks, provinces such as Northern Cape, Free State, the North West and Gauteng announced that more learners are testing positive for the virus in schools compared to teachers.

In the Free State a learner succumbed to the virus. 

READ: “We are at risk. They do not care about us” – Free State Teacher

As Malema made the call, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga was in Limpopo monitoring schools ahead of primary school learners going back to school daily on 26 July as well as all learners in special education needs schools. 

At the press briefing Malema said it must be private schools that must lead the campaign to close schools because they had “power and sometimes even tell the government what to do”. 

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NALEDI SHOTA|

The Nelson Mandela University has become the second institution this week to suspend contact classes after there was a spike of positive Covid-19 cases at its Gqeberha campuses. 

In a communique to staff and students this week, the university said the call to temporarily halt face-to-face classes was after ten positive cases were recorded in one day and a further six overnight.

The university said all the positive cases are students. 

“All these students are in quarantine, and since two are also from the same class, which had held mask-to-mask activities, their entire class has also been placed under quarantine.

“For the students’ own safety and that of others, they will isolate themselves in their rooms for ten days, monitoring themselves for symptoms. Such is the complicated nature of the virus, however, some of the students who recently tested positive for Covid-19 were, and are, asymptomatic. In other words, they have none of the usual Covid-19 symptoms,” reads the communique. 

The university said following the spike it would reduce large gatherings on campus, would improve entrance screening and other measures in an effort to minimise the spread of the virus at the institution. 

“Various buildings may also be temporarily closed to counter the possibility of large gatherings of people,”  reads the communique. 

The university further said that all planned face-to-face assessments for this week will move online or will be deferred until it is safe to return to contact classes. 

On Tuesday Inside Education also reported that the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) had suspended contact classes after a student died from Covid-19 related illnesses last week. 

READ: TUT suspends all contact classes

The university’s spokesperson, Phaphama Tshisikhawe, said TUT did not know when it would resume contact classes. 

“This will be determined by the cases of the coronavirus in the country. It is not only because of the Covid-19 related death that we are experiencing in the university, it is mostly because the infections that are increasing,” said Tshisikhawe at the time. 

Debbie Derry, NMU Deputy Director said the university not only faces the third wave of infections but also faces the “worst water crisis in living history” and the constant threat of load shedding.

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NYAKALLO TEFU|

The Gauteng Department of education has raised concerns about the number of Covid-19 cases at schools in the province.

In the past week, the provincial department reported that over 1 000 school children tested positive for the coronavirus.

“1227 learners and 802 teachers have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the number of schools with positive cases to 1637,” said the provincial department’s spokesperson Steve Mabona.

Reports show that the rise in cases at schools come as the country enters the third wave of Covid-19 infections with the number of cases recorded in the past 24 hours sitting at 8881.

“We are concerned by the number of cases at schools. We are working closely with the Department of Health and every time there is a case the department will visit the school to see how to deal with the issue,” said Mabona.

READ: ‘Schools cannot open if all health protocols are not in place’ say teachers and parents

Reports show that Krugersdorp High School was shut down on Thursday to reopen on Monday, 14 June. The decision came after 9 learners tested positive for the Covid-19 virus..

Ivan Bailey, the school principal, said all those learners who tested positive immediately went into isolation.

“We will continue to manage all cases following the required protocols and procedures,” said the school principal.

He added that four staff members also tested positive for the virus and that they were already in isolation.

“The staff are also apprehensive as many of them have elderly or co-morbid family members who live with them,” said Bailey.

Learners are set to return to school on 14 June 2021.

READ: The Northern Cape sees sharp increases in Covid-19 infections in schools

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NYAKALLO TEFU|

The Gauteng Department of Education (GDE)said it is seeking legal advice following the reinstatement of the Parktown Boys High School principal, Malcolm Williams.

Williams was dismissed in December 2020 for his role in the events that led to the death of Grade 8 learner, Enock Mpianzi, during a school outing that was not sanctioned by the department.

The incident led to Williams being charged with three counts of misconduct, two of which were upheld following disciplinary proceedings.

The first allegation was that he unjustifiably prejudiced the administration, discipline, or efficiency of the department by undertaking a school excursion without prior approval.

The second allegation was that he failed to ensure that a correct rollcall for all the pupils who went on the camp was maintained.

READ: Forensic Report into Enock Mpianzi’s Death Finds the Lodge, Parktown Boys’ High Teachers Liable and Negligent

On Wednesday, the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC)ordered that the department allow Williams to commence with his duties.

“The ELRC decided that Mr Williams must be reinstated and reimbursed for the salary he did not receive for the six months that he has not been paid,” said GDE spokesperson Steve Mabona.

Williams is set to receive an amount of R285,594 — equivalent to six months of his salary by July 30.

Williams argued that his dismissal on two counts of alleged misconduct was substantively and procedurally unfair.

Mabona said Gauteng education is disappointed by this decision taken by the ELRC and that, as a department they will seek legal advice on what action to take.

“We are studying the decision and seeking legal counsel on the matter. We are not fully happy with the outcome but also realise that this matter has been dragging for too long, negatively affecting those involved,” said Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi.

READ: MEC Panyaza Lesufi says Gauteng government won’t oppose Enoch Mpianzi R10m lawsuit

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NYAKALLO TEFU| 

133 primary schools Limpopo have been piloted for the Coding and Robotics programme for the 2021/2022 financial year.

This is according to Limpopo Education MEC Polly Boshielo who, at the Department of Basic Education budget vote debate, said the inclusion of Coding and Robotics in the curriculum is important for young people across the country.

“Coding and Robotics are designed to provide learners with knowledge, values and skills needed for the 4th Industrial Revolution,” said Boshielo.

The Limpopo Education Department has embarked on a project to give grades one and eight pupils tablets as part of its e-learning project.

“As a department, we will be offering in-house training courses to 200 targeted educators through the department’s coding club,” said Boshielo.

She said this club is composed of educators who are knowledgeable in this field and will be used as an important resource in rolling out the project.

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the dynamics of teaching and learning forcing learners, educators and policy makers to embrace the new normal.

“The pandemic has compelled us to accelerate our efforts towards embracing the 4th Industrial Revolution, access to technology is no longer meant for the privileged few but it is a basic necessity for all,” said Boshielo.

The MEC said R228 million has been set aside for the rollout of e-learning in the province.

“A two-prompt approach will be followed in rolling out the e-learning strategy, the first one is implemented at 106 Maths Science and Technology schools with smart classrooms,” said Boshielo.

Boshielo said the second one will be the provisioning of tablets to learners and laptops to educators in schools in the province.

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