Prominent educationists doubt that simply merging tertiary institutions will attain the government’s policy goals for higher education. They argue that increased access to and participation in the tertiary system are especially unlikely to be achieved if the Cabinet endorsed proposals proceed.
Allegations of long-standing fraud and rampant financial mismanagement in the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education have surfaced again, this time with questions about the use of R700-million — nearly a tenth of the province’s education budget.
South Africa’s non-profit sector is worth R14-billion a year and employs more than 600000 people but is having too little impact in relieving poverty.
”There’s a litany of human rights abuses at Unisa,” charges senior lecturer in theology Dr McGlory Speckman. ”When academics are unable to express their views publicly, that’s an abuse of human rights. When the senate is unable to carry out a healthy debate, that’s an abuse of human rights.
Low-wage workers have been prime victims of transformation in South African higher education, and unions at universities have been eroded in the process. Power relations that disadvantage workers have placed much of the burden on them.
The country’s skills development drive will be jeopardised if the government implements proposals to reduce the number of technikons. This warning is at the heart of the technikon sector’s vigorous counter-attack against the proposals, which aim to reduce the current 15 technikons to six.
Staffers at e.tv are jubilant at this week’s Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) ruling that sacked assignments editor Barbara Boswell be reinstated. The CCMA also awarded Boswell R84 000 in backpay.
Once a popular haunt for wealthy businessmen and home to large numbers of long-term Jewish residents, The Crest is now the stamping ground for an ever-expanding group of Nigerians who began moving in about five years ago.
”Deep dissatisfaction” with Unisa’s management accounts for an ”abysmal” voter turnout in elections last year for two of the university’s most important bodies, suggests a report written by Dr Marie Heese, election officer and chair of the Electoral Commission.
Extravagance has wiped out hard-won financial gains at Unisa, insiders say. Unisa is lavishing millions of rands on accommodation for its new vice-chancellor, Dr Barney Pityana, in a stately historic mansion in Pretoria.