Monako Dibetle

Wits University’s illustrious education policy unit is considering relocating lock, stock and barrel to the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

In celebration of Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday this week, Monako Dibetle asked children born in 1994 who they think Madiba is.

Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s public appearance and statements deploring xenophobic violence at the weekend seem have boosted his popularity among inhabitants of migrant labour hostels in Johannesburg.

Wandile Langa (20) says he is a proud xenophobe whose greatest satisfaction would be to see all "Shangaans go back to where they came from". He means Mozambican Shangaans. "It’s war I tell you; it’s South Africa versus Maputo." Langa is sitting in the back seat of our car as we speed through the rubble and ash from burnt tyres in the Ramaphosa informal settlement.

A serial dieter, a budding botanist or a gardening enthusiast? The disappearance of <i>Hoodia gordonii</i>, a rare indigenous succulent, from the garden of the University of the Witwatersrand’s Origins Centre has caused a stir. The plant’s claim to fame is its P57, an appetite-suppressing substance, which is widely used for weight loss.

The institution, in Ruimsig, west of Johannesburg, was set up by Australia’s Monash University in 2000/01 as one of two satellite campuses in other countries. The mother institution invested about R450-million in property, equipment and running costs in the South African operation.

Since the advent of transformation in higher education, the University of the Free State (UFS) has been seeking ways to re-establish its regional and international influence. This week the UFS officially launched the Centre for Africa Studies (CAS) at the university’s Bloemfontein campus, under the theme: "The study of Africa in the post colony."

Concerns over the declining quality of law graduates are fuelling calls from top legal minds to probe the reintroduction of a five-year LLB degree. Leading the debate is Transvaal Judge President Bernard Ngoepe who has called on universities and the government to consider the re- introduction of the five-year training of lawyers.

The University of Limpopo is crumbling under poor management and governance practices, a ministerial report has disclosed. Drafted by ministerial appointee Professor Bennie Khoapa, the report recommends that he and his task team help the university fix wide-ranging problems in the next eight to 12 months. These exist in areas such as financial administration, human resource management, academic planning, governance and management.

"Of course they can," says Dr Venitha Pillay, feminist author and University of Pretoria academic whose single-motherhood status inspired her to undertake a study on women academics who are also mothers. Prior to conducting research for her book, Academic Mothers, Pillay found that most literature on women and work tends to be cluttered with arguments around balancing the two lives — motherhood and work.

In 1995, Thabo Dikobe’s* goal was to become an electrical engineer. His mind was set and nothing was going to prevent him from realising his dream. He started his studies at the former Johannesburg Technical College (JTC), but in his third term misfortune struck. His parents divorced and his mother, a domestic worker, could not afford to pay for his studies.

‘Our problem is so big I even contemplated suicide," said Edgar Ledwaba, a traumatology "graduate" at the Tshwane University of Technology. Ledwaba, like several other traumatology students at the institution, was shocked earlier this year when university officials announced that the national diploma in trauma­tology had been cancelled and that he would not graduate in May.

‘Within our cultures we only pick what suits us best and use it in our everyday lives — lobola is one of them," says Nandipha Mosia, a young newly wed from the West Rand. Interviews with 10 urban, black South Africans revealed the many ways in which "traditional" beliefs are transformed in a modern setting and shape attitudes to marriage.

Food items such as your trusted brands of coffee and tea, maize meal and rice, as well as toiletries such as deodorants, lotions and bathing soaps could soon vanish from supermarket shelves. Food retail chains announced a national shortage in dry food goods and toiletries. A decline in the supply of these items was first experienced in November and the phenomenon is expected to continue into the new year.

More than a million Gautengers — one in six adults — run small businesses ranging from survivalist street hawking to sophisticated and fast-­growing enterprises, a survey has found. Finscope project manager Darrell Beghin says the survey found there was an increasing vibrancy in Gauteng’s small-business sector.