Andrew Stegmann

South African Education System: Two Major Areas of Change Imminent

Early Grade Reading Programme

Government is implementing an Early Grade Reading Programme, which consists of an integrated package of lesson plans, additional reading materials and professional support to Foundation Phase teachers.

President Cyril Ramaphosa aims to mobilise the entire nation behind a massive reading campaign, and wants every 10 year old to be able to read for meaning within the next decade.

Speaking in his recent State of the Nation Address, Ramaphosa said that early reading ‘is the basic foundation that determines a child’s educational progress, through school, through higher education and into the workplace’.

“All other interventions – from the work being done to improve the quality of basic education to the provision of free higher education for the poor, from our investment in TVET colleges to the expansion of workplace learning – will not produce the results we need unless we first ensure that children can read,” he said.

As part of this push, Ramaphosa said that all foundation and intermediate phase teachers are to be trained to teach reading in English and the African languages.

He added that government is currently training and deploying a cohort of experienced coaches to provide high-quality on-site support to teachers.

“We are also implementing the Early Grade Reading Programme, which consists of an integrated package of lesson plans, additional reading materials and professional support to Foundation Phase teachers,” he said.

“This forms part of the broader efforts to strengthen the basic education system by empowering school leadership teams, improving the capabilities of teachers and ensuring a more consistent measurement of progress for grades three, six and nine.”

New subjects

As part of plans to future-proof the economy, Ramaphosa also pledged to introduce a number of technology-focused subjects to the curriculum,

“We have to prepare our young people for the jobs of the future,” he said. “This is why we are introducing subjects like coding and data analytics at a primary school level.”

In April 2019, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) said it had trained 43,774 teachers in computer skills and would shortly begin training teachers for the new coding curricula.

Basic Education Angie Motshekga said that these teachers will be trained on coding from June to September 2019.

Coding as a subject will be piloted at 1,000 schools across five provinces starting in the 2020 school year.

The minister said that the DBE will also be introducing a robotics curriculum from Grade R-9.

The curriculum will have a strong foundation in engineering and will enable learners to build and operate robots through programming code, she said.

“This robotics curriculum will not require any infrastructure or devices, but will need maker spaces to provide hands-on, creative ways to encourage students to design, experiment, build and invent; e.g., through cardboard construction activities,” she said.

“This will not only develop STEM skills, but also contribute to effectively developing children’s creativity, critical thinking, design thinking, and digital skills.

“This will ensure that South Africa develops learners who are makers and inventors who will contribute to building an innovative culture in South Africa,” she said.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email marketing@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann

City of Johannesburg Identifies Sites for Affordable Housing Conversions

The City of Johannesburg says it has identified 37 abandoned factories in the city that it plans to expropriate in order to convert into low-cost affordable housing.

Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba said this came after the council’s resolution last year to make 84 city-owned properties available for the purpose of creating quality low-income housing within the inner city.

Mashaba said the 84 buildings would generate an expected R21bn in investment, 11,000 construction sector jobs and over 6,000 affordable housing units.

“Following on this success in the inner city, the multi-party government has now identified 37 abandoned factories across the city, specifically those located in areas in desperate need of housing opportunities.

“Arising from their large stand sizes, the yield of these properties will offer nearly 3,000 housing opportunities in multi-storey buildings,” Mashaba said in a statement.

He said the abandoned factories that had been identified were located in Kew, Devland, Rabie Ridge, Doornfontein, Booysens and Nancefield.

Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba.

Mashaba said 16 of the buildings were in close proximity to Alexandra, offering a much-needed opportunity to reduce the density of settlement in this under-developed township.

He said the municipality would prepare a proposal to council in August, which would allow the city to begin the legal proceedings to expropriate these properties as abandoned buildings.

Mashaba said these buildings would be expropriated within the existing legal framework of the constitution.

“For this we will utilise the fact that they are abandoned, owners are untraceable and monies owing on these properties exceed their value.“

Mashaba said once the expropriations were approved by council, the city would be able to put these properties out to the private sector and award them on the criteria that achieved the largest number of residential units, the lowest rentals, the highest job creation and investment.

Mashaba said the City of Johannesburg had previously sought to tackle the housing backlog with a reliance upon RDP housing each year. However, the RDP housing could never begin to reduce the housing shortage, he said.

“Our residents cannot wait for dreams of new cities to materialise in the distant future, if at all,” Mashaba said.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email marketing@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], Jacques Nel [2].

Andrew Stegmann
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New Air Tanzania and Ethiopian Airlines Routes to South Africa

Air Tanzania

Looking to attract tourists from South African and other business travellers, state-owned Air Tanzania Company Ltd (ATCL) is set to revive its passenger schedule route connecting four major airports in Tanzania with the OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, starting June 28.

The four direct flights per week will use ATCL’s recently-acquired Boeing 787- 8 Dreamliner jet, which has the capacity to carry 262 passengers.

This past week, ATCL public affairs spokesman Josephat Kagirwa told The EastAfrican that the four local airports to introduce South African connections are Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar International Airport, Kilimanjaro International Airport in northern Tanzania, and Mwanza International Airport.

Mr Kagirwa said the Dreamliner will be replaced by an Airbus A220-300 on the Johannesburg route from July 16. “We expect to maintain this route as we prepare for long-haul flights to India and China,” he said.

The direct flights to and from Johannesburg will be on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. South Africa is one of the top profit-making routes for most airlines in the Southern and East African region.

Southern African airports are the main linking points to destinations in Australia and the Pacific Ocean rim that are considered upcoming new tourist markets for Tanzania and other East African states. The Tanzania Tourist Board is working jointly with ATCL to market the destinations. South Africa itself is a source market for about 48,000 tourists annually, mostly adventure and business travellers.

Latest official figures show that about 16,000 tourists from Australia visited Tanzania in 2017, mostly using connections through Johannesburg. In the same year, there were 3,300 visitors from New Zealand and 2,600 from the Pacific Rim (Fiji, Solomon, Samoa and Papua New Guinea).

Ethiopian Airlines

Ethiopian Airlines has commenced its maiden flight from Lagos to Johannesburg with its code-share partner, Asky.

With that service, Ethiopian Airlines/Asky to South Africa has become the only non-South African airline on the route between Nigeria and South Africa. It flight was welcomed with Water Canon salute and received by staff of Asky and Ethiopian Airlines. The Airport Community also joined in the reception. The flight was operated with an Asky B737-700 commanded by Captain Dawit Muluneh. It left Lagos for Johannesburg by 16: 45 pm on Saturday.

The General Manager of Ethiopian Airlines in Nigeria, Mrs. Firihiewot Mekonnen, at the inaugural ceremony said, “Asky is the operating airline, while Ethiopia Airlines is the marketing carrier.”

“Nigeria is one of our biggest markets where we bring the best of our aircraft and we always strive to give our best to Nigerians.

“As part of this motive we found out a lot of Nigerians travel to South Africa so we decided to help improve the connectivity for the passengers.

“We have also availed many promotional fares so we invite Nigerians to use the best deals to Johannesburg,” she said.

The inaugural flight had a 70 per cent load factor. The flights are daily from Lagos to Johannesburg. Some days the flights go through Libreville on other days it will go through Douala.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email marketing@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: Captureson [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann

Plans for South Africa’s New e-Visa System

A new digital system for visa applications is on the cards for October.

The e-visa is part of government’s overhaul to make it easier for tourists to travel to South Africa, as well as for companies to acquire employees with scarce skills. President Ramaphosa made the commitment during his State of the Nation Address last Thursday.

“We’ll make good on our ambition to more than double international tourism arrivals to 21 million by 2030,” Ramaphosa said. “This will be achieved through the renewal of the country’s brand introducing a world-class visa regime and a significant focus on key markets.”

Ramaphosa’s commitment has been well received by business, but the industry says more is needed. “We welcome the fact that he said we’ll put in place a world-class visa system,” said Banking Association of SA CEO Cas Coovadia.

“What we would have liked him to say was that current visa system that’s impeding tourism will be suspended immediately.” Tourism accounts for about a tenth of the economy and employs about 1.6-million people.

The latest data shows an increase of more than 4 percent year-on-year in April. Home Affairs says the new visa system will enable investment. The department further stated that the visa system should also make it more efficient to admit people with scarce skills and it won’t compromise the country’s security.

“We’re now at the stage where we’re doing functional testing, once that’s done we’ll do a proper pilot with a few countries,” said Home Affairs Acting Director-General Thulani Mavuso “Once that’s completed we’ll go into production.”

Currently, citizens from 59 countries don’t need to apply for a visa to visit South Africa and this figure is set to increase soon. Tourism is a major impetus for growth and job creation and the e-visa will hopefully make travelling here easier.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email marketing@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].