There are three critical stakeholder components that must be managed optimally in order to deliver the best education outcomes. The state has a constitutional responsibility and mandate to provide quality school infrastructure and teaching resources. The School Governing Bodies and state must ensure that quality teachers are employed to impart knowledge to learners and manage […]
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Posted inGender violence, Media
Shaming rape survivors and other bull
“What a week for women! First, two of the (very few) prominent political mavens became kissing besties and then spectacularly not, and then that rape-cry-baby Michelle Solomon made a scene and had to be put back in her place by a good ol’ cigar-smokin’ man like David Bullard (for a bet it turns out, classic!) […]
Posted inGender violence
Oscar Pistorius and how Valentine’s Day kills
Today is Valentine’s Day — a day when capitalist consumption and heteronormative myth-making are in full swing: red roses (for the women, of course), images of happily-ever-after coupling (mostly of a heterosexual bend), and the coming together of brand “Hetero-Love” in a frenzy of consumerism and schmaltz. This day is yet another consummation of a […]
Posted inGender violence, Media, News/Politics
Breaking my Bullard silence
Say what you wanna say and let the words fall out I wanna see you be brave. There I was driving along Witkoppen with Jacaranda on the radio — for once, I was a classic shooter curtain cliché — and those words struck home. So here I am, being brave — or stupid — and […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Cheese, crackers and taking women in politics seriously
In light of the rumours of trouble in the Agang camp and the elections racing towards us, one would understand Mamphela Ramphele’s need to find a bedfellow in the depths of political winter. It is a time-honoured political move. The ANC has its sheets full while the smaller parties bundle together. But sometimes one does […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality, General
The real problem with incompetent black graduates
For many, the mercurial politics of corporate South Africa are punctuated by awkwardly silent, contrived spaces of uncomfortable reflection – spaces known as office elevators. Every so often the silence is broken by wide-eyed faces brimming with the heat of new degrees. Ha! It must be February and the new crop for the graduate programme […]
Posted inNews/Politics
DA old boys determined to learn wrong lesson from Agang debacle
It was perhaps inevitable of a relationship that was sealed in public with a lip-puckering smooch, only to collapse within days in recriminations. Political commentators have trotted out every sweaty-palmed sexual and relationship cliché found in the English language, then flogged them mercilessly. Among the bromides there’s been “marry at haste, repent at leisure” (not […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Ranciére and ‘the police’
The more acquainted I get with the work of Jacques Ranciére, the more it strikes me that his uncompromisingly philosophical treatment of familiar phenomena is a way of doing what has been recognisable as philosophy’s archetypal function since the time of the ancient Greeks, namely to expose the familiar as covering up what is “truly” […]
Posted inBusiness, Health
Leave our ‘germs’ alone!
There is a television advertisement aired in South Africa periodically that I find particularly irritating. In it a young mother, baby in arms, walks around her kitchen spraying an aerosol into the air, to a verbal and written promise that the product in question “Kills germs dead!” Besides massacring the English language, the premise that […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Ramphele debacle reflects DA’s double standards
For the Democratic Alliance, this was to be the “game-changer”. With a credible black face as its presidential candidate, the ANC would no longer be able to use the race card to dismiss the DA, went the reasoning. Yet, no sooner had the DA announced Mamphela Ramphele as its Number One candidate, the ANC was […]
Posted inBusiness, Health, Tech
How money is more important than lives in healthcare technology
I saw via Twitter an interesting link on Reuters here about how students have developed a smartphone application with a microscope attachment to diagnose malaria. The article shows a picture of a child at risk somewhere in Africa. Great idea, and one that can go a long way to help people who really need it. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Figures point to a culture of police impunity
By Lukas Muntingh and Gwenaelle Dereymaeker Since the start of service-delivery protests in Mothotlung in the North West, four people died at the hands of the police. On several occasions, the police ministry has made statements defending its corps. The government’s arguments can be summarised as follows: (i) There is no culture of impunity in […]