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].
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].
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].
United States Tells African Countries Not To Expect Debt Relief
African countries running up debt they won’t be able to pay back, including to China, should not expect to be bailed out by western-sponsored debt relief, the United States’ top Africa diplomat warned.
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank began the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative in 1996 to help the world’s poorest countries clear billions of dollars worth of unsustainable debt.
But Africa is facing another potential debt crisis today, with around 40 percent of low-income countries in the region now in debt distress or at high risk of it, according to an IMF report released a year ago.
“We went through, just in the last 20 years, this big debt forgiveness for a lot of African countries,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Tibor Nagy, referring to the HIPC programme.
“Now all of a sudden are we going to go through another cycle of that? … I certainly would not be sympathetic, and I don’t think my administration would be sympathetic to that kind of situation,” he told reporters in Pretoria, South Africa, recently.
Under Donald Trump’s administration, the United States has criticised China for pushing poor countries into debt, mainly through lending for large-scale infrastructure projects. It has warned those nations risk losing control of strategic assets if they can’t repay the Chinese loans.
Sri Lanka formally handed over commercial activities in its main southern port in the town of Hambantota to a Chinese company in 2017 as part of a plan to convert $6 billion (£4.7 billion) of loans that Sri Lanka owes China into equity.
U.S. officials have warned that a strategic port in the tiny Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti could be next, a prospect the government there has denied.
From 2000 to 2016, China loaned around $125 billion to the continent, according to data from the China-Africa Research Initiative at Washington’s Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
And a number of African countries form part of China’s $126 billion Belt and Road Initiative to link China by sea and land through an infrastructure network with southeast and central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.
China has rejected criticism of its lending in Africa. And debt campaigners point to the fact that much of Africa’s current debt load consists of commercial debt to western financial institutions or Eurobonds, which are more expensive to service than Chinese loans.
“All of these countries are sovereign states, so it’s for them to decide who they want to trade with,” Nagy said. “We feel we have an obligation to point out to them when we believe they are getting into severe economic difficulties.”
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].
Five Black Rhinos Have Been Successfully Relocated to Rwanda From Europe
A chartered cargo plane, Boeing 747-400F operated by Air Atlanta under the brand name of ‘Magma’ carrying the five black rhinos touched down at the Kigali International Airport.
Offloading the rhinos from the plane kicked off soon as the plane landed. A team of airport staff first offloaded huge cargo of supplies containing feed for the rhinos.
The three female and two male black rhinos, ranging between two to nine years old, were selected from European zoos. Jasiri, Jasmina and Manny were born in Safari Park Dvur Kralove, Czech Republic. Olmoti comes from Flamingo Land in UK while Mandela is from Ree Park Safari in Denmark.
The Eastern black rhinos follow a batch of other rhinos, which were brought to Rwanda from South Africa in 2017. Officials, including the Head of Conservation at Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and African Parks which manages Akagera National Park, were around to witness the arrival of the critically endangered species.
According to Safari Park Druv Kralove, the plane took off from the Czech Republic at around 7:45 am on Sunday. They were transported to Akagera by three separate trucks. Overall, their transportation to Akagera Park from Czech Republic will have taken around 30 hours. This is the largest ever translocation of rhinos from Europe to Africa.
The translocation of the rhinos is the result of what has been described as “unique collaboration between the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA), the Government of Rwanda and conservation NGO African Parks.
It was first announced last year that EAZA zoos had donated the highly endangered species to Rwanda. The Head of Conservation at RDB told The New Times recently that the rhinos will bring considerable benefits to the country.
“Even though we already have rhinos from South Africa, to ensure a healthy population, you have to bring in species that is from a different group to allow integration,” he said.
The more you bring in rhinos to integrate, he added, the more the assurance of strength of genes that are strong and resistant.
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].