On August 12, Internatinal Youth day, we will be reminded that young people have been at the forefront of the fight for social change. Young South Africans have fought against apartheid and colonialism, in the same way that youth across the continent have resisted exploitation and subjugation. For these reasons, as well as from a human rights perspective, youth development must be a central tenet of South Africas national development agenda.
The national education department has identified district offices as key instruments in its pursuit of improving the quality of education, said Palesa Tyobeka, deputy director general for general education and training.
Bureaucratic sloth or unwillingness to apply the law is slowly strangling a number of schools in Gauteng. Now some are taking legal steps to force the Gauteng education department to do its job.
Zimbabwean teachers are leaving home in droves. Low salaries and poor working conditions have made life unbearable for them. It is estimated that since last year almost every school in the country has lost at least three to four teachers.
There are a few special places that, no matter how many times you visit them, always stir the senses, refresh the soul and banish the stresses and strains of everyday life. For me, Mpumalanga’s Blyde River Canyon is one of these places.
The forthcoming book, <i>Marginal Lives and Painful Pasts: SA Cinema of Apartheid</i>, edited by Martin Botha, a collaboration between Genugtig! Uitgewers and the University of Cape Town’s new African Cinema Unit, is one of the first to explore an overview of local cinema in the new South Africa.
"When I attended film school, it dawned on me and my fellow students that the key to a successful pitch lay in addressing the salient issues of distribution," writes lawyer and film aficionado Charl Groenewald in the introduction to his book <i>The Laws of Movie-Making</i>.
Despite a dearth of locally made feature films in the past year, the South African film industry is being buoyed by comparatively low production costs that attract foreign films and commercials. And the glitter-dust from Tsotsi’s Oscar win last year and <i>U-Carmen eKhayelitsha</i>’s Golden Bear for best film at the 2005 Berlinale casts a hip glow on the film industry.
Film tourism might be an ambiguous term, but it refers to the idea that every time a specific location or destination is used in a film, the film indirectly promotes the destination to its viewers. "This has been evident within the Bollywood film market," says Mark Visser of the Cape Film Commission.
Thirteen years into our fledgling democracy, our film industry has much to celebrate. In terms of awards, available finance, positive government and industry goodwill and incoming service productions, the film industry has been bathing in a particularly positive light. However, things needs to be turned up a notch. We need to examine a tough question — that of our commerciality — and start to look at the business side of show business.