Tag Archive for: education

University of Cape Town (UCT) Vice-Chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng has been named among the Times Higher Education’s (THE) 10 People of the Year.

Professor Phakeng is among the 10 people “who mattered in higher education in 2020”, named by THE on Thursday, 17 December. The list comprises “the academics and administrators who have shaped the debate in the past 12 months”.

According to THE: “There is no doubt that higher education will need strong, transformational leadership as the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, and few people embody this more than Phakeng. Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town since 2018, she continued to speak out powerfully against inequality in South Africa and in academia globally over the past year.”

“If universities are to transform into more equal institutions, they will need leaders like Professor Phakeng who are not afraid to speak uncomfortable truths and hold the sector to account.”

Speaking at this year’s THE World Academic Summit, Phakeng said that universities needed to show more “reflection and humility” around their own “complicity” in perpetuating racism and sexism, and called for the creation of more diverse leadership teams and an end to the exploitation of researchers from the Global South.

“If universities are to transform into more equal institutions, they will need leaders like Professor Phakeng who are not afraid to speak uncomfortable truths and hold the sector to account,” wrote THE.

Phakeng is the only African named on the list. The others are:

  • Patrisse Cullors (academic at Otis College of Art and Design, and Prescott College)
  • Professor Sarah Gilbert (scientist at the University of Oxford)
  • Professor Christian Drosten (head of the Institute of Virology at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin)
  • Professor Zhang Yongzhen (researcher at the Fudan University-affiliated Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center)
  • Dr Jill Biden (long-time college teacher in the US)
  • Professor Thomas Maschmeyer (chemist at University of Sydney)
  • Professor Neil Ferguson (mathematical epidemiologist at Imperial College London)
  • Dr Lauren Gardner (co-director at the Center for Systems Science and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University)
  • Dr Clare Wenham (assistant professor of global health policy at the London School of Economics).

 

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

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

As part of our constant drive to give back to our community, our team has endeavored to join together to participate in a monthly community-focused CSR initiative. The team comes together each month to participate in an activity aimed at uplifting the community around our head office in Cape Town, after which ideas are put forward for the following month’s initiative.

In this way, as South Africans, we are giving back not only on Mandela Day, but throughout the year, as the need doesn’t end after the holiday.

Naturally, we take all necessary COVID-19-related precautions when participating in the activities, so as to ensure the health and safety of our team members and those we are interacting with outside our office.

For our third month, in November 2020, we came together to collect books, with the theme of ‘Literature & Education are Vital’. We invited our neighbors to join us in collecting books they no longer needed, and dropping them off at our office’s reception. We then handed them over to charity Help the Rural Child.

Help the Rural Child is a chain of charity shops that support the Goedgedacht Path Onto Prosperity Rural Youth Centres. Help the Rural Child, through its charity shops, is doing its bit to help these children break out of the endless cycles of poverty that have trapped their parents for so many generations. Help the Rural Child has nine shops at present: two bookshops, one in Mowbray and one in Kirstenhof; four clothing and bric a brac shops in Mowbray, Retreat, Sea Point and Cape Town CBD; a furniture shops in Retreat and a Mobile Bookshop that goes out to schools. Their newest edition, connected to the Mobile Bookshop, is The Children’s Bookshop in Mowbray.

Their shops are all run with two staff members and a wonderful group of volunteers. All the stock of books, bric-a-brac, clothing, furniture and household goods are donated by the very supportive Cape Town public. We are pleased that we could be part of one of these donations.

 

Gallery

We hope this inspires our readers and other companies to start similar initiatives, as if we all work together, we can greatly improve the quality of life of those in need around us.

 

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

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

The Department of Basic Education has scrapped final examinations for Grade 10 and 11 learners and will instead replace them with controlled tests.

Department spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga told the SABC that the decision was made as a once-off measure, due to teaching time lost due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s a once-off measure that we have put in place after we looked at everything that affected schooling this year and we felt it would not be fair to have a full-scale examination when schools were closed and reopened. With the trimmed curriculum we realised that we are not going to finish the syllabus,” he said.

“Grade 10 and 11 (students) learn the same thing, it is just the degree of difficulty of what they are learning. It is basically something that is not really new to them. So what we are going to do is create more time next year to ensure that all the work that was not covered is covered then.”

The weighting for the exams been reduced from 75% to 40%, while the weighting for the school-based assessment (SBA) has been increased from 25% to 60%.

A circular sent to schools and teachers presented the changed promotional requirements for Grade 10 and 11 in more detail.

On the test, the circular stated that grade 10 papers will be an hour-long, with grade 11 papers two hours long. According to the circular, controlled tests should be set only on content taught.

The controlled test must cover a substantial portion of the curriculum taught, preferably work covered in all terms, wherever possible.

The test, it said, must be administered under controlled conditions. The document said that fundamental subjects like languages, maths and maths literacy will offer the required number of papers with a reduced duration.

“All elective subjects to reduce the number of papers to one test per subject,” the department said.

Later start dates

Basic Education minister Angie Motshekga says to ensure that matriculants are not compromised by the late release of the Grade 12 results, Universities South Africa has agreed to extend the academic year to the end of February 2021.

Universities are expected to start their 2021 academic year in March or April next year. This, Motshekga said, will ensure that students will still be able to get admitted to institutions of higher learning on time.

The Minister said this when ministers in the Social Services Cluster responded to oral questions in the National Assembly on Wednesday.

“On 24 August this year, our Director-General (Mathanzima) Mweli met with Universities South Africa, which is the body that regulates admissions to higher education institutions, and they indicated that universities will be extending the 2020 academic year to the end of February next year.

“So while the opening of universities is not universal, we are certain that when we issue (matric) results on 23 February next year, we will not be disadvantaging learners because most universities will start their 2021 academic year in March or April next year,” she said.

This comes after the department announced last month that the 2020 Grade 12 examinations would be completed by 15 December, with marking being concluded on 22 January and the results released on 23 February 2021.

The new school year will commence on 25 January 2021 for teachers and learners a few days later.

 

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

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

The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has published a new directive which outlines the new return dates for South African schools.

The directive, which was gazetted on Tuesday (7 July), further splits the return of pupils with some students now set to return as late at 31 August.

These new dates are detailed in the table below.

The directive also makes provision for provinces which are unable to comply with the new start dates.

In these cases, the DBE said that if a MEC responsible for education in a province must, at least seven days before the date identified for the return of the respective grades, submit a report to the Minister for concurrence or further determination.

The report must include:The reasons for the non-compliance; and
A plan with the proposed dates for the phased return of learners and officials in the respective grades. You can read the full directive by clicking here.

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

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