Peter von Loesecke | The MBA Tour
With education being the most powerful tool that can change the world, The MBA Tour has successfully lived up to making an impact by taking the first step in providing unique opportunities for personal interaction between top international business schools and potential students to study abroad.
On Thursday, 12 October the annual MBA Tour hosted and featured top business schools from North America and Europe, where individuals saw top business schools which included: UPenn Wharton, Columbia, Chicago Booth, Toronto Rotman, and more.
“It was great to be in South Africa again this year, where we had 322 people register for the event compared to last year. We had representatives from business schools that conducted specific talks, panels, and presentations which all gave insight on the importance of studying abroad and how this can benefit individuals. This tour also showcased that MBAs abroad are not only for a higher LSM, but rather those who are determined and driven to achieve their goals,” says Peter von Loesecke, CEO &amp; Managing Director of The MBA Tour.
Based on research it is clear that there is a definite increase in the motivation to study towards an MBA. In 2014 alone, some of South Africa’s leading business schools recorded high registration numbers for prospective students enlisting for a Masters of Business Administration (MBA)<a href="https://www.moneyweb.co.za/archive/record-high-mba-enrolments-at-sa-business-schools/">[</a>1]. However ,an MBA combined with other experience like engineering or operations can help someone with that experience to differentiate themselves in the workplace.  “It is an essential qualification to understand how strong brands prevail in the marketplace, as well as why well managed distribution channels often define market success rather than the product itself, and how powerful supply chains become a competitive global advantage”, says von Loesecke.
The MBA Tour also emphasised that studying abroad is not something that is impossible and completely out of reach. The main focus of this tour was to bring top business schools from across the world to meet and build relationships with potential MBA students in Johannesburg, as well as to open up valuable channels of communication.
“The MBA is definitely worth the cost if you have the right combination of experience, motivation to succeed, and career path in mind. Many successful entrepreneurs began their careers in industry, but were able to exploit “disrupters” in their industries to build a new business model for delivering goods and services. We are looking forward to seeing how many South Africans seize the opportunity and enrol following this tour,” concluded von Loesecke.
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Open the door to thriving career opportunities abroad with an MBA degree

Girls are least likely to be in school in South Sudan, with nearly three-quarters of school-age girls out of the classroom, followed by Central African Republic, Niger and Afghanistan, all countries hit by conflict, a report said on Tuesday.
Nine of the top 10 countries where girls fail to get a education are in Africa, while other crisis crippled countries, including Somalia and Syria, failed to make the list due to insufficient data.
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“Over 130 million girls are still out of school &#8211; that’s over 130 million potential engineers, entrepreneurs, teachers and politicians whose leadership the world is missing out on,” said Gayle Smith, president of the ONE Campaign that published the index ahead of the International Day of the Girl.
“It’s a global crisis that perpetuates poverty.”
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In South Sudan, 73 percent of girls aged 6 to 11 are not in school, in the Central African Republic there is only one teacher for every 80 students and in Niger only 17 percent of girls and women are literate, the report found.
“This index shines a necessary spotlight on the barriers that girls face to accessing a quality education in Africa,” said Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen, CEO of children’s humanitarian organization, Plan International.
“The quality of a country’s education is linked to the resources governments invest in it,” said Albrectsen, who called for the closing of the education funding gap and addressing the barriers preventing girls from going to school.
The report found exceptions, however, such as Burundi, one of the poorest countries in the world, that outperformed 18 wealthier countries when it came to girls’ education.
Thousands of girls are kept from school due to poverty, early marriage, dangers in traveling to class and having too many chores at home, according to the United Nations’ children’s organization, UNICEF.
In Ethiopia, two in every five girls marry before their eighteenth birthday while just one percent of girls in Burkina Faso complete secondary school, according to the report.
Attitudes towards education for girls are starting to change across Africa &#8211; as more parents see sending their daughters to school not only as a chance to improve their futures, but also to boost the family’s fortunes, experts say.
But generations of women have been left behind, with women accounting for almost two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults.
“Extreme poverty and gender inequity drive the injustice that not only keeps girls out of school, but forces them into child marriages,” said Fiona Mavhinga, a lawyer and one of the first girls in Zimbabwe supported by international educational charity Camfed to go to university.
Without an education young woman are “locked away from a better future,” she said.
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Reporting by Adela Suliman; editing by Ros Russell.
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Going to school? Unlikely if you’re a girl in South Sudan, report says

Hanne Kirstine Adriansen | Aarhus University
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The idea that knowledge is infused with power and politics may sound abstract, so let me offer an example from my own life to illustrate. I was invited to a dinner proceeding a conference in an African capital city. I had expected to meet all the other speakers. But it turned out to be only for the chosen few. I could not help wondering how we’d been selected. White faces outnumbered black ones, men outnumbered women – at a conference to discuss African universities’ future role.
It was an interesting example of the power and politics of knowledge. These are factors I believe should be addressed to ensure African universities and higher education can play a more powerful role in transforming our world and empowering women.
The UN says its 2030 Agenda, which is made up of 17 sustainable development goals, is aimed at “transforming our world”. Quality education and lifelong learning, along with gender equality and empowerment of women, feature in many of the goals.
Universities and higher education, however, receive little attention in this document. So it may seem odd to focus on higher education in relation to Agenda 2030 and women. But I’ve chosen this perspective because higher education institutions in general and universities in particular are important for achieving Agenda 2030’s goals.
Universities have two main objectives: to educate students and to produce knowledge. They play a major role in procuring the human and intellectual resources needed for fulfilling the various goals of Agenda 2030.
<h2>Power and politics of knowledge</h2>
There have been institutions of learning in Africa for more than 1000 years. But today the most common type of higher education has its rootsin colonial-era institutions.
Frantz Fanon, a Martinique-born Afro-French psychiatrist, philosopher and revolutionary, wrote about the colonisation of the mind some 50 years ago. He argued that colonised people tended to adopt their colonisers’ perspective. Independence in Africa did not really change this tendency, Fanon wrote.
African intellectuals have argued for many years that the continent’s universities and school systems in general reproduce(d) their colonial legacy. This happens, for instance, through curriculum and language. Benin’s Paulin Hountondji and Kenya’s Ali Mazrui are among those who have written about African scholars’ intellectual and epistemological dependency. Examples of this reliance can be seen in modern school books in parts of the continent.
It’s not for me as a European to judge whether Africa’s universities are still suffering from what Kenyan intellectual Ngũgĩ wa Thiong&#8217;o would call the colonisation of the mind.
However, I do know that knowledge production is never neutral. It is neither objective nor power free. African women’s narratives about their journeys in academia show how the power and politics of knowledge are intrinsically linked to gender. Race and history must also be considered. This means issues of colonialism, imperialism and dominance are never far away.
The narratives I have studied show that it is not always simple to determine who exercises power over whom and when. Zimbabwean researcher Bevlyn Sithole sees dominance in action when researchers take ownership over communities’ knowledge. She highlights the importance of co-producing knowledge:
<blockquote>Co-production of knowledge between scientists and communities is a prerequisite for research aiming at a more sustainable development path.</blockquote>
<h2>Marrying Agenda 2030 and local knowledge</h2>
This returns us to the question of Agenda 2030.
How can academics produce knowledge of local relevance and include the perspectives and cultures of the people in question? How can knowledge be built that promotes sustainable development and appreciates culture’s contribution to it, as called for in Agenda 2030’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals?
The debate about Africanisation of curriculum and knowledge production also relates to the discussion about universities’ role as local drivers of sustainable development.
The so-called global knowledge economy has placed increasing demandson universities to internationalise and compete beyond national borders.
Can a university be locally relevant, focusing its teaching and research on local sustainable development needs and also be involved in global competition with an increasing emphasis on standardisation? Transnational capacity-building projects are one way universities try to address both local and global commitments. I have participated in capacity-building projects myself.
It has been argued, though, that capacity-building projects and other types transnational collaboration can lead to dependency. Agenda 2030 is likely to result in more such projects, because this is where funding can be found.
It is imperative to knowledge production that academics continue to collaborate. But it must happen in parallel with the decolonialisation of knowledge and methodology. The question is how it can be done.
The first step is to pay attention to the apparent universality of knowledge. I would warn against moving towards a complete Africanisation of curriculum and knowledge production. The dilemma is that this may entail an unproductive essentialisation of the “African”: for example, who the “African” is, where the “African” lives, and what the “African” can study. And what is “African” knowledge, and who can produce it?
Academic institutions and individual academics should try to contextualise knowledge and pay attention to the difference between universal knowledge and dominant knowledge. Yet we should also acknowledge that without ideas about universality, universal human experiences and human rights, Agenda 2030 would never be realised.
<h2>Contextualising knowledge</h2>
African education will not reach its transformative potential through the mindless transfer of knowledge, theories and methods from other parts of the world. This will reproduce dependency.
Instead, empowerment of women and sustainable development require that more contextualised knowledge be produced. The power and politics of knowledge must be analysed. It is necessary to differentiate between dominant knowledge and universal knowledge and, through this process, decolonise the African academy.
This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in BUWA, a journal produced by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa.

The power and politics of knowledge: what African universities need to do

Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni | University of South Africa
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Maori anthropologist Linda Tuhiwai Smith, in her seminal work Decolonising Methodologies, argues that
<blockquote>Re-search is a dirty word.</blockquote>
Hyphenating “research” into “re-search” is very useful because it reveals what is involved, what it really means, and goes beyond the naive view of “research” as an innocent pursuit of knowledge.
It underscores the fact that “re-searching” involves the activity of undressing other people so as to see them naked. It is also a process of reducing some people to the level of micro-organism: putting them under a magnifying glass to peep into their private lives, secrets, taboos, thinking, and their sacred worlds.
Building on Smith’s work, my concern here is the context in which re-search methodology is designed and deployed. In particular, it concerns the relationship between methodology with power, the imperial/colonial project as well as the implications for those who happened to be the re-searched.
Broadly speaking, what is at issue is re-search as a terrain of pitting the interests of the “re-searcher” against those of the “re-searched.” The core concern is about how re-search is still steeped in the Euro-North America-centric worldview. Re-searching continues to give the “re-searcher” the power to define. The “re-searched” appear as “specimens” rather than people.
I define re-search methodology as a process of seeking to know the “Other” who becomes the object, rather than subject of re-search and what is means to be known by others.
That is why methodology needs to be decolonised. The process of its decolonisation is an ethical, ontological and political exercise rather than simply one of approach and ways of producing knowledge.
<h2>Whose methodology is it anyway?</h2>
When Europeans shifted from a God-centred society to secular thinking during the Enlightenment period, they inaugurated the science of “knowability”. God was no longer the only one who could understand the world. The rational human could too.
This idea is best captured in Rene Descartes’ famous dictum
<blockquote>Cogito Ergo Sum (I Think, Therefore, I am).</blockquote>
This marks the emergence of the Cartesian philosophy of being and the Cartesian knowing subject: a human defined by her rationality.
Since then, the decolonial theorists have unmasked the person behind the “I” as not just any human being, but the European “Man”. Here was born the idea that “Man” stands for “Human” as well – the beginning of the shift towards the world being seen through a patriarchal lens.
It was during the “Voyages of discovery” that gave rise to colonialism, that European men began to encounter the “Other” and then assume the position of a “knower” and a “re-searcher” who was thirsty to know the “Other”, who emerged as the native Indian, as Shakespeare’s Caliban, as the African, the Aborigines and the other natives.
The Other had to be re-searched to establish whether they were actually human or not. Here was born the methodology as a handmaiden of colonialism and imperialism.
<h2>From ‘ethnographic’ to ‘biometric’ state</h2>
In his book Define and Rule, Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani argued that every colonial conqueror was preoccupied with the “native question”. This was about how a minority of white colonial conquerors were to rule over a majority of conquered black people.
To resolve the “native question” the conquered black “native” had to be known in minute detail by the white coloniser. Thus re-search became a critical part of the imperial-colonial project. The European anthropologist became an important re-searcher, producing ethnographic data and knowledge that was desperately needed by colonialism to deal with the nagging “native question”.
As a result of this desire to know the “native” for colonial administrative purposes the colonial state emerged as an “ethnographic state”, interested and involved in ‘re-searching’ the native so as to “define” and “rule” over the “native”.
It was under the “ethnographic state” that colonial ideologues such as Thomas Babington Macaulay in India, Lord Frederick Lugard in West and East Africa, Cecil John Rhodes in Southern Africa used this data to malevolent ends, both to invent the idea of the native and to control her. They assumed the status of experts on the colonised natives and produced treatise such as The Dual Mandate in Africa which assumed the status of modules on how to rule over “natives”.
Today, with the rise of “global terrorism,” drug-trafficking and the problem of migration, new forms of surveillance, and state control have emerged. Keith Breckenridge in his award winning book  reflected on concepts of “biometric state” and “documentary state”. These use machines to extract, capture, and store information about all people, but particularly “Muslims” and “blacks”, whose ways of worship, living and actions do not fit into the European template.
What is the role of re-search in this and what methodologies are used in trying to know the “Other”, that is, the unwanted migrant and the feared Muslim.
<h2>Unmasking, rebelling, re-positioning and recasting</h2>
Decolonising methodology must begin with unmasking the modern world system and the global order as the broader context from which re-search and methodology are cascading and are influenced. It also means acknowledging and recognising its dirtiness.
Our present crisis is that we continued to use re-search methods that are not fundamentally different from before. The critique of methodology is interpreted as being anti-re-search itself. Fearing this label, we (modern scholars and intellectuals) have been responsible for forcing students to adhere religiously to existing ways of knowing and understanding the world.
No research proposal can pass without agreement on methodology. No thesis can pass without recognisable methodology. There is a mandatory demand: how did you go about getting to know what you have put together as your thesis?
Consequently, methodology has become the straitjacket that every new researcher has to wear if they are to discover knowledge. This blocks all attempts to know differently. It has become a disciplinary tool that makes it difficult for new knowledge to be discovered and generated.
In the knowledge domain those who try to exercise what the leading Argentinian semiotician and decolonial theorist Whater D. Mignolo termed “epistemic disobedience” are disciplined into an existing methodology, in the process draining it of its profundity.
Decolonising methodology, therefore, entails unmasking its role and purpose in re-search. It also about rebelling against it; shifting the identity of its object so as to re-position those who have been objects of research into questioners, critics, theorists, knowers, and communicators. And, finally, it means recasting research into what Europe has done to humanity and nature rather than following Europe as a teacher to the rest of the world.

Op-Ed: Decolonising research methodology must include undoing its dirty history

This content was supplied to CNBC Africa by AfricaCom
<a href="https://tmt.knect365.com/africacom/?utm_source=CNBC%20NA1&amp;utm_medium=Homepage&amp;utm_campaign=20th%20Anniversary">AfricaCom</a>, Africa’s largest technology, telecoms and media event celebrates its 20th anniversary in November this year, and promises delegates and exhibitors three days of thought-provoking content and cutting-edge technology and a glimpse into what the future holds in terms of digital and its impact on life as we know it.
<a href="https://secure11.eventadv.com/africacom/?_ga=2.2997493.47320750.1505722000-1826445331.1467279154&amp;utm_source=CNBC%20NA1&amp;utm_medium=FREE%20VISITOR&amp;utm_campaign=20th%20Anniversary">Claim your FREE visitor pass here</a>.
Taking place from 7-9 November at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), South Africa, organiser KNect365 has introduced a host of innovations of its own to celebrate this auspicious occasion &#8211; a brand-new and happening Technology Arena that will provide a glimpse of the potential the future holds for forward-thinkers – whether it is in the Fintech space, or E-Health, education, energy, agri-tech or more.
<a href="https://tmt.knect365.com/africacom/technology-arena?utm_source=CNBC%20NA1&amp;utm_medium=Tech%20Arena&amp;utm_campaign=20th%20Anniversary">The Technology Arena</a> will also house an exciting array of new tech (over 100 exhibitors), some of which, will be interactive and on display in demo pods, along with many other novel developments that will debut at the show.  Included in this exciting space is another fresh feature, AfricaCom 20/20.  This is a brand-new show floor item dedicated to accelerating Africa’s digital transformation and is the centrepiece of the new arena.
Underpinning the event, is a business-critical agenda and, as always, world class speakers, alongside over 400 exhibitors. But AfricaCom is more than an exhibition and a conference.  It is now a staging ground for re-imagining and re-defining how we, as Africans and humans, will communicate and transact with one another.
“2017 is a landmark for AfricaCom. Over the past two decades, we have grown from being a purely telecommunications-focused event, to a broader, digital communications show now hosting the foremost group of influencers involved in every aspect of the African digital ecosystem,” explained Tom Cuthell, Portfolio Director of KNect365, the organiser of the event.
“As the digi-sphere continues to expand and impact every aspect of our personal and professional lives, AfricaCom has grown in scope to create a broad platform for everybody involved in powering the digital economy in Africa.”
The importance of this event is unquestionable.  Over the past two decades, it has provided a stage for robust debate, as well as identifying the needs for Africa’s growth and the solutions and subsequent policy making that has seen the continent leapfrog the desktop era, straight into mobile.
‘Digital’ is now intrinsic in our daily DNA, tomorrow and the day after.  As such, AfricaCom’s bringing together of front-end developers and backend engine drivers, into one place, is an essential service to the custodians of not just Africa’s future, but the planet’s, as we embrace the merging of man and machine in the 4th Industrial Revolution.
About AfricaCom 2017
AfricaCom is part of the Connecting Africa series of events that expose delegates, the media and the savvy, to the latest advancements and opportunities in technology and the digital ecosystem. Taking place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) from 7 &#8211; 9 November 2017, AfricaCom is now in its 20th year.   AfricaCom is Africa’s largest technology, media and telecommunications conference &amp; exhibition.  The conference programme covers the most strategic issues affecting companies in Africa’s digital market &#8211; services, efficiency, profitability, customer experience, partnerships, policy and more – and features several co-located events: LTE, TVC &amp; Mission Critical Africa.
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AfricaCom 2017 – Celebrating 20 years of Africa’s telecoms and technology journey

Seth Trudeau and Keno Omu | African Leadership University
Across Africa, students arrive on campuses full of hope that a university degree will improve their lives. The reality is far less certain.
In 2014, a British Council study estimated Nigeria’s graduate unemployment at 23.1%. In Kenya, it takes an average of five years for a graduate to find a job. Yet business leaders frequently say there are jobs – just a lack of skilled talent to do them. How can this be?
There are two commonly cited explanations. The first is that financial, human capital and infrastructure constraints have a negative impact on the range and quality of skills students graduate with. The second is the disconnect between what universities teach and the skills needed in the market.
However, another more fundamental explanation has to do with howstudents are educated, irrespective of what they study or the resource constraints they face. How students learn matters to employers because it shapes how they think and what they do at work.
A growing number of employers are no longer looking for graduates with the most impressive degree certificates. In fact, trailblazers like Ernst &amp; Young have removed degree classifications from their entry requirements because they do not believe that academic success is always a sign of professional success.
<h2>A new kind of graduate</h2>
Employers are now looking for graduates who can think for themselves, integrate into fast-paced work environments, learn new ways of working and develop creative solutions to real problems. These abilities depend more on how they were taught than what they learned.
We are at a unique moment in the history of education. Information was once scarce but is now everywhere. In the last 15 years, we have also made a giant leap forward in our understanding of how the brain works and how people learn. These developments have radically altered the way we think about higher education.
In the traditional university model, “learning” meant access to information and knowledge, education resources and teaching expertise. Today, technology has made it easier for anyone to get information, knowledge and learning resources.
The advantage retained by the traditional university is in producing and organising knowledge. But academic researchers form a very small percentage of the knowledge workers needed in the information age.
<h2>Time to revisit old models</h2>
Universities need to rethink their approach to learning if they are to produce people with the critical thinking, leadership, collaboration and problem solving skills needed for modern life.
Learning in many African universities still happens in large lecture halls and rewards the ability to remember and repeat information. Researchers such as Nobel Prize winning physicist Carl Wieman have shown that this is one of the least effective  ways of learning.
Effective learning takes three things. First, students must be able to reflect on what they are learning. Reflection helps students assess what they know and what they don’t. It also helps them to integrate new ideas and concepts into their body of knowledge. When students reflect, they strengthen the neural pathways in their brain, and build new pathways that link information that was previously not associated. These links enable critical thinking.
Second, true learning happens when students stop being passive recipients of information and become active experimenters. When students take an active part, they take responsibility for the results and ensure that learning is relevant to them. They develop habits that help them learn later in life, such as self-regulation, motivation and curiosity.
Third, learning happens when students apply new concepts or skills. This is the most natural test for a student’s comprehension of what they are studying. Doing something, receiving feedback about it, refining the approach and then doing it again also builds neural pathways for retrieval and association.
Universities are the planning stage for a society’s aspirations. African universities must begin to produce employable leaders who will meet the challenges that are hindering the continent’s progress. To produce graduates with the appropriate skills and ways of thinking, they will have to change the way they see, design and assess learning.

Op-Ed: Are graduates prepared for the job market? Rethinking Africa’s university model

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The quality of education in Nigeria has come under much scrutiny in recent times.

Nigeria’s quality of education under scrutiny

Derek Yu | University of the Western Cape
The latest South African jobs statistics continue to reflect a shockingly high unemployment rate which will take some doing to reverse. Concerns about the high levels of youth unemployment and the social upheaval this might cause have been widely expressed.
But a deeper analysis of the numbers reveals an even scarier picture of large sections of the population suffering from chronic joblessness and worrying details about the country’s youth unemployment statistics that haven’t been sufficiently highlighted.
These include the fact that 39% of all unemployed South Africans have never worked before. Among young people this figure is even higher – at 60.3%. The numbers also highlight that many young people struggle to find their first job.
In contrast, the elderly face the problem of long-term unemployment after they lost their jobs. A greater share of them last worked more than 5 years ago. This share was the highest at 47.4% for the 50-65 year-olds.
To save the situation the government might have to make certain difficult choices. These could include accepting that certain age groups, above youth age, are unemployable and that what they need are poverty alleviation interventions. The government might then be able to focus on facilitating job opportunities for those aged between 15 and 29 who account for nearly half of total unemployed.
<h2>Overall unemployment at a glance</h2>
According to the World Bank the 2016 average unemployment rate for all upper middle-income countries was 6.2%. At 25.9% in 2016 and 27.7% in 2017 South Africa’s rate is higher than other African countries also classified by the bank as upper-middle-income countries. These include Botswana at 18.4%, Gabon at 18.5% and Namibia at 25.5%.
South Africa’s unemployment rate has been rising steadily for the past nine years. When the rate dropped from a peak of 31.1% in March 2003 to 21.5% in the last quarter of 2008 there was hope that it would drop to a level close to 15% by the end of 2010.
The rate has gone up despite policies being adopted that promised to cut joblessness. These included the New Growth Path which was adopted in 2011 and promised to create 5 million jobs and reduce unemployment to 15% by the end of 2020.
But in the intervening six-plus years employment increased by 2.2 million, bringing the number of unemployed to 6.17 million.
What’s even more concerning is that the annualised unemployment growth rate of 4.8% is double that of employment growth (2.4%).
If these trends persist, achieving the even more ambitious goal set out in the National Development Plan of dropping the unemployment rate to 6% by 2030 is highly questionable.
<h2>Two extreme groups</h2>
The numbers suggest the presence of two extreme groups of unemployed in South Africa.
The first consists of youth who struggle to find the first job despite actively searching through and answering job advertisement. Most have matric, that is they have completed 12 years of schooling.
The second group comprises of the elderly with previous work experience but who have been seeking work mainly via their social networks for more than 3 years. Most have not completed 12 years at school.
There’s a third group of unemployed sandwiched between the first two , namely those aged 30 years to 65 years with past work experience but who have been seeking work for shorter duration.
The government may need to realistically “accept” the second group (long-term elderly unemployed) as unemployable and focus on poverty alleviation. And the government might want to put more focus on the other two groups of unemployed, particularly young people.
The short-term elderly unemployed may require training to have their skills upgraded to better match the skills needs of employers before they stand a better chance of being reabsorbed into the labour market.
<h2>What must be done?</h2>
The South African government is not doing enough to address the youth unemployment crisis. Its efforts to create jobs for young people through an employment tax incentive hasn’t had much of an impact: youth employment has actually dropped since it came into force four years ago.
There are lots of obstacles to job creation in South Africa. The most recent global competitiveness report shows that the country’s labour market is hobbled by inefficient hiring and firing practices, little cooperation between employers and employees as well as a poor relationship between pay and productivity.
This tempts employers to replace labour (particularly the less skilled and experienced ones) with capital and discourages them from hiring new workers. In both cases, the youth are the most vulnerable.
So, what are the other options to more rapidly boost youth employment?
A transport subsidy for youth unemployed has been recommended as an alternative policy option. The idea was motivated by the fact that many jobs are in areas which are far away from where poor people live and therefore extremely expensive to get to.
The relationship between poverty and unemployment is startling. Data from 2014/2015 show that the poorest 40% of the population accounted for a mere 12.4% of total national income, but accounted for 71.9% of the unemployed. It’s therefore possible that poverty and expensive transport costs are huge barriers to unemployed people finding work.
Self-employment is another potential route for young people. But even that number is falling. It’s alarming that between 2008 and 2017 the number of youth employers or self employed workers dropped from 390 000 to 340 000.
This suggests that entrepreneurial activities for young people deserve serious attention. This should include government accelerating support in entrepreneurship skills training, access to micro-finance and creating an enabling environment for business development.
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This article was first published in The Conversation.

Op-Ed: The lesser known and scarier facts about unemployment in South Africa

Phumlani M. Majozi | Free Market Foundation
The state of South Africa’s basic education is a topic of constant debate – by political parties, the media, civil organisations and the general public. Even though basic education has had a positive impact on South Africa’s development post-apartheid, problems such as dismal educational outcomes and the absence of teachers torment us, and, especially, low-income families.
These problems aside, some progress has been made in addressing and eradicating the legacy of apartheid in education. Increased access to <a href="http://dmanalytics2.com/click?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.polity.org.za%2Ftopic%2Feducation-company&amp;i=1&amp;d=laFzDMa8SyOZus-4KyehcQ&amp;e=Monique.Vanek%40abn360.com&amp;a=guiKLVUoQFC_XeXRrJgI7g">education</a> has accelerated the growth of the black middle class so that, f<a href="http://dmanalytics2.com/click?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbusinesstech.co.za%2Fnews%2Fbusiness%2F134749%2Fblack-vs-white-middle-class-in-south-africa%2F&amp;i=2&amp;d=laFzDMa8SyOZus-4KyehcQ&amp;e=Monique.Vanek%40abn360.com&amp;a=guiKLVUoQFC_XeXRrJgI7g">or the first time, in 2008, the size of the black middle class surpassed that of whites</a>.
Throughout human history, <a href="http://dmanalytics2.com/click?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.polity.org.za%2Ftopic%2Feducation-company&amp;i=3&amp;d=laFzDMa8SyOZus-4KyehcQ&amp;e=Monique.Vanek%40abn360.com&amp;a=guiKLVUoQFC_XeXRrJgI7g">education</a> has been a big factor in the development of nations, and, therefore, <a href="http://dmanalytics2.com/click?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.polity.org.za%2Ftopic%2Fsouth-africa&amp;i=4&amp;d=laFzDMa8SyOZus-4KyehcQ&amp;e=Monique.Vanek%40abn360.com&amp;a=guiKLVUoQFC_XeXRrJgI7g">South Africa</a>’s prosperity is dependent on the quality of its basic <a href="http://dmanalytics2.com/click?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.polity.org.za%2Ftopic%2Feducation-company&amp;i=5&amp;d=laFzDMa8SyOZus-4KyehcQ&amp;e=Monique.Vanek%40abn360.com&amp;a=guiKLVUoQFC_XeXRrJgI7g">education</a>.
Even though South Africa’s education faces many challenges, it is fair to say that, on balance, the opening up of educational opportunities has had a positive impact on our society.
South Africa’s basic education challenges
Even with the progress that has been made since 1994, relative to the past, South Africa’s basic education is not doing as well as in other countries. Government is failing in many respects to pursue the reforms needed to improve the country’s education.
Besides the absence of teachers and dismal outcomes, other problems that challenge the provision of education in South Africa range from the shortage of educational facilities, to overcrowded classrooms, and the destructive actions embarked upon by <a href="http://dmanalytics2.com/click?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymaverick.co.za%2Farticle%2F2017-05-11-sadtu-sas-most-controversial-union-faces-human-rights-probe%2F&amp;i=6&amp;d=laFzDMa8SyOZus-4KyehcQ&amp;e=Monique.Vanek%40abn360.com&amp;a=guiKLVUoQFC_XeXRrJgI7g">teacher unions like SADTU</a> (South African Democratic Teachers Union).
Most affected by government’s failure to improve public basic education are children from low-income families – where parents cannot afford to seek out alternative sources of education for their children.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-282460 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/FMF_State-of-Education_SA.png" alt="" width="656" height="378" />
Twenty per cent of South Africa’s government expenditure–the biggest allocation compared to other sectors, as shown on the 2016 Budget Review above – goes to education. Yet the outcomes still disappoint.
<a href="http://dmanalytics2.com/click?u=https%3A%2F%2Fafricacheck.org%2Freports%2Fis-sas-education-system-the-worst-in-africa-not-according-to-the-data%2F&amp;i=7&amp;d=laFzDMa8SyOZus-4KyehcQ&amp;e=stuart%40biznews.com&amp;a=TqYqUQmIT3CLh53Pmnazig">According to Africa Check</a>, South Africa ranks behind poorer African countries like Kenya, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zimbabwe on literacy and numeracy. That we are behind these poorer countries with all our privileges ought to unsettle us all.”
In Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), <a href="http://dmanalytics2.com/click?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbusinesstech.co.za%2Fnews%2Fgovernment%2F145121%2Fgovernment-celebrates-south-africas-dismal-maths-and-science-results%2F&amp;i=8&amp;d=laFzDMa8SyOZus-4KyehcQ&amp;e=Monique.Vanek%40abn360.com&amp;a=guiKLVUoQFC_XeXRrJgI7g">results released in 2016</a>, South Africa ranked second last in the world. African countries like Botswana, Egypt and Morocco, performed better than South Africa.
Could independent schools be the solution to South Africa’s education problems?
As government fails to produce desirable results on public education, reforms are urgently needed to make improvements. Government needs to look into encouraging and creating an environment where independent schools can thrive and grow.
Independent schools are already having a significant impact on South Africa’s education. Between 2000 and 2010, <a href="http://dmanalytics2.com/click?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.economist.com%2Fnews%2Fbusiness%2F21679790-south-african-entrepreneurs-have-good-ideas-bringing-private-education-masses-school&amp;i=9&amp;d=laFzDMa8SyOZus-4KyehcQ&amp;e=Monique.Vanek%40abn360.com&amp;a=guiKLVUoQFC_XeXRrJgI7g">according to an article that appeared in The Economist</a> in December 2015, the number of government schools established in South Africa fell by 9%; while that of independent schools grew by 44%.
But parents from low income families cannot afford many of the independent schools. Private education is expensive. Government needs to find ways to encourage the establishment of low-fee independent schools to fuel not only competition between private schools, but also competition between low-fee private schools and public schools, and so improve overall basic education in South Africa.
Low-fee private schools have a huge potential. The Spark school in the suburb of Bramley, is a good example of the kind of education system the government could pursue.
“Quality independent schooling such as Spark, priced at R19,100 a year, means families with widely different incomes can afford to, or simply choose to, send their children to low-fee schools,” Lisa Steyn wrote in <a href="http://dmanalytics2.com/click?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmg.co.za%2Farticle%2F2016-12-09-00-boom-in-low-fee-private-schools&amp;i=10&amp;d=laFzDMa8SyOZus-4KyehcQ&amp;e=Monique.Vanek%40abn360.com&amp;a=guiKLVUoQFC_XeXRrJgI7g">the Mail &amp; Guardian in December 2016</a>.
Schools like Spark are badly needed, and the task for government must be to encourage the growth of such low-fee schools so that education becomes competitive and its quality improved.
Competition would improve not only private education, but also public schools, because public schools would have to compete with other schools by providing quality education for South Africa’s youth.
The role played by businesses, parents, and communities in general, is critical in any effort to improve the education sector in this country. These stakeholders, other than our bureaucratic government, must assume greater control of the schools in their communities. The participation of the private sector in our schools would demand greater commitment from all involved.
<a href="http://dmanalytics2.com/click?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tsowell.com%2F&amp;i=11&amp;d=laFzDMa8SyOZus-4KyehcQ&amp;e=Monique.Vanek%40abn360.com&amp;a=guiKLVUoQFC_XeXRrJgI7g">Dr. Thomas Sowell</a>, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, once said that there are no solutions in economics, there are only trade-offs. Competition will not be the solution to South Africa’s education problem – but it could be government’s first step towards bringing about significant reforms in the sector.
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Phumlani M. Majozi is a youth co-ordinator and non-executive director at the Free Market Foundation

Op-Ed: Can South Africa’s basic education be fixed?

Stephanie Giamporcaro and Xolisa Dhlamini | UCT Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town
Universities are no longer simply institutions of learning. Over the past 50 years, they have also become important players in global financial markets. They have become institutional investors.
Universities have to decide what to do with the pension fund contributions of their staff. They also receive large monetary donations from alumni and other private donors. This money – millions, sometimes billions of dollars – goes into university investment funds. These can be managed internally or delegated to investment managers.
Harvard University in the US has the biggest endowment fund in the world with USD$32.7 billion, while university endowment funds in the UK hold between £2.5 million and £1 billion. Pension funds in the US and UK are even more substantial. For example, the California University pension fund boasts more than USD$70 billion.
University funds in southern Africa are much smaller, but some are still significant. According to our calculations, the universities with the largest endowments are all in South Africa, with the top five representing a little less than USD$1 billion collectively. The pension funds of the top 10 universities in the region come to around USD$3,6 billion.
<div id="attachment_281759" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-281759" class="wp-image-281759 size-medium" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/University_of_pretoria_Wikemedia-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />The University of Pretoria</div>
The question of how universities choose to invest all this money is increasingly coming under scrutiny. In the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand universities’ pension funds and endowment funds are starting to align their investment portfolios with the social concerns of their students and staff.
<h2>Putting assets to work for a better world</h2>
In the 1970s student and staff activists at US universities put serious pressure on their managements to stop investing in companies involved in the Vietnam war or, later on, in apartheid South Africa.
Today climate change is the issue that’s increasingly dominating the activist agenda on university campuses. Since 2012, 350.org, a climate change activist movement, has been pushing for total disinvestment from fossil fuels – with some significant victories . Student activists in the US have also called successfully for disinvestment from prisons.
In 2005 the UN established a responsible investment coalition called the Principles for Responsible Investment. Signatories pledge to invest according to six principles, aiming to achieve long-term sustainable investment returns and benefits for society as a whole. So far over 1000 investment managers have signed up, making it the biggest coalition of this kind in the world.
A few academic institutions have signed up too. Harvard’s USD$35 billion University Endowment Scheme joined in 2014. And at least four retirement funds, endowment funds or foundations linked to tertiary education institutions in the US and Europe signed up this year. As was the case with Harvard, this has often happened under pressure from student activists.
<h2>Progress at South African universities</h2>
So far no universities in South Africa or Africa have signed the principles. But there are signs that the idea of responsible investment is starting to gain some traction – especially within the heightened activism at South African universities.
For example, the South Africa fossil free disinvestment campaign has made significant progress at the University of Cape Town. After a four-year campaign, the university’s convocation of alumni and students this year voted to support a motion to disinvest from fossil fuels.
The Rhodes Must Fall movement also brought the issue of workers’ exploitation into focus. It accused leadership at the University of Cape Town of having blood on its hands for being invested in Lonmin at the time of the Marikana Massacre.
This was closely followed by nationwide Fees Must Fall protests. Protesters called on government to provide free education for all. In doing so, they challenged the idea that universities should operate as businesses according to free market principles. They also challenged the role of the university in society by calling for decolonisation of the institution.
<div id="attachment_281770" style="width: 960px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-281770" class="wp-image-281770 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/UCT_Wikimedia_RZ1.jpg" alt="" width="950" height="616" />The University of Cape Town</div>
Since then the University of Cape Town’s council has agreed to design a responsible investment policy. This makes it the first known Southern African university to do so.
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<h2>Paradigm shift</h2>
For this movement to truly take off in Southern Africa’s universities, there needs to be a paradigm shift at the level of university management.
As stressed by the University of California, becoming a responsible investor is not about giving up on financial returns. Rather it’s about finding ways to achieve these while addressing societal challenges and opportunities. A responsible investor can decide to disinvest from environmentally and socially harmful sectors, but also to support new investment opportunities such as renewable energy.
An institutional investor that takes its responsibility towards future generations seriously should reflect on its values to take informed decisions on how financial returns can be better achieved. Fortunately it’s becoming easier to do this thanks to a surge in innovative investment strategies and funds that seek to achieve both good financial returns and positive social impacts. The African Investing for Impact Barometer – a research project that we run for the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the UCT Graduate School of Business – charts the rise of opportunities like this and shows that impact investing on the continent is booming.
This trend, combined with activism, can persuade universities to become more proactive, creative and responsible investors.
Student and staff activists have clearly begun to interrogate the links between social and environmental issues and their universities’ investment choices. For university management, these questions present an opportunity to think about how their investment portfolios can be used address the social concerns of their students and staff. Universities – being both institutional investors and places of education – can ultimately find improved investment solutions that create a more sustainable future for the generations of learners to come.
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This article was published on The Conversation.

South African universities need to rethink how they invest their millions

Suellen Shay | University of Cape Town
Jonathan Jansen, vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State in South Africa until a year ago, has written a book on the country’s higher education sector. As by Fire – The End of the South African University is one of a number of recent books that set out to make sense of the current crisis in South African universities.
The crisis began in early 2015 with the #RhodesMustFall protests and gained momentum over the course of 2015. These protests fuelled, and eventually overtook the national #FeesMustFall movement. The underlying economic, cultural and political issues that drove the protests remain largely unresolved.
As by Fire is structured around three main questions: What in fact happened? Why did it happen? And what does the protest crisis mean for the future of South African universities?
Jansen draws on his own experience as well as interviews with 11 vice-chancellors in the country. His conclusion is:
<blockquote>In a nutshell, there is no future, and
What we are witnessing is a full system meltdown.</blockquote>
There are several problems with Jansen’s apocalyptic thesis.
<h2>An irresponsible thesis</h2>
Firstly, for a scholar of Jansen’s calibre, the analysis lacks a broad comparative perspective. His main reference point is the story of failing universities on the rest of the continent.
Jansen doesn’t make any comparisons to student protests across the globe– in Hong Kong, Canada, Chile, the UK, the US and Turkey, to name a few. These were also characterised by occupations of leaderless movements, threats of violence by police and militant students, reassertion of identity politics in curriculum and political stalemate.
A more thorough comparative analysis of what is happening in South Africa in relation to continental and global trends could have led to a more constructive conclusion that posed a range of future scenarios instead of a single “no future” story.
The more serious problem with Jansen’s “no future” thesis is that it’s irresponsible. Someone of Jansen’s profile has tremendous power to shape the narrative. And how South Africans interpret the events of the past two years shapes how the sector will go forward. In other words, his conclusion has consequences. Why would academics stay if they believed Jansen’s predictions with the certainty that he projects them? Why would students apply? Why would donors invest?
In the final few paragraphs Jansen attempts to wave a small flag of hope by appealing to civic action under the banners of free education for the poor and the right to education for all. This is an unconvincing attempt to end the book on a happier note.
<h2>An important perspective on leadership</h2>
What the book does offer is a view of university leaders under crisis – a close-up, zoomed-in, largely unedited perspective of 11 VC’s “under fire”, in some cases, literally. This is why the book will be of interest to anyone in higher education management.
The extensive literature of higher education leadership and management needs more of this kind of “in the trenches” study – leaders describing in their own words what it feels like to be flattened between a rock and a hard place, managing competing and contradictory demands from all sides while always under the watch of an unsympathetic media.
The book presents a view of leaders in a lose-lose situation, required to make on-the-spot judgement calls. The reader gets a close-up view of the ways in which they worked tirelessly to defend their institutions and were battered from every side. And Jansen is right to expose the extreme pressure and the personal costs that the VCs and their families paid. The accounts expose both their vulnerability and their resilience.
Jansen concludes by arguing that what’s needed more than ever before is
<blockquote>university leadership that is both compassionate in speaking to the student heart and competent in leading our universities in a demanding world of teaching, research, and public duty.</blockquote>
The missed opportunity of the book is that Jansen doesn’t explicitly extract from his interviewees what that compassionate competence looks like. In retrospect, what do they think they did right? What do they regret? What did they learn as leaders in crisis about the complexities of leading a university community at this stage of South Africa’s democracy?
Rebecca Solnit, American activist and author of Hope in the Dark, writes of the times we are living in that
<blockquote>this is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative movements that could not be foreseen. It’s also a nightmarish time. Full engagement requires the ability to perceive both.</blockquote>
What South Africa’s universities need from their leaders now is not prophecies of doom, but deeper reflection on the transformative potential of this difficult historical moment.
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This article was first published in The Conversation.

Op-Ed: The end of South African universities?

Signy Wegener, Anne Castles | Macquarie University
Children’s oral vocabulary – their knowledge of the sounds and meanings of words – is strongly <a href="http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/24/4/322.full">positively associated</a> with their reading all the way through school. Understanding this relationship is important for making children’s reading as strong as possible.
Our <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.12577/full">new research</a> has pointed to one mechanism underlying this association: when primary school children know a spoken word, they form an expectation of what that word should look like when it is written down – and they do this even if they have never seen it before.
Using eye-tracking technology, we demonstrated that these expectations can help children to process orally familiar words more quickly when they read them for the first time.
<h2>The tech: understanding eye-tracking</h2>
Advances in technology have made it much easier to use eye-tracking with children. Unlike old systems that were mounted on participants’ heads, new systems (shown below) sit on the desk in front of the child. The eye-tracker finds a small target sticker on the child’s forehead and uses it to work out where the child’s eyes are.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-268504 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Kids-Class_Computers_Flickr.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" />
Eye-trackers are special cameras that can follow the movement of the eyes as children read in real time. They provide information about where children look and how long they look for, giving insight into what is happening <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963721414530145">when children read</a>.
When the properties of a written word are changed (for example, how many letters it has or how frequently it occurs in written language), this influences how easy or difficult those words are to process.
Put simply, when processing is easy, looking times are shorter. When processing is hard, looking times are longer.
<h2>The experiment: from hearing to seeing</h2>
In order to form expectations about written words that have not yet been seen, children require a combination of knowledge about:
<ul>
<li>the pronunciation and meaning of a spoken word; and</li>
<li>the links between the sounds in spoken words and the written letters that represent them.</li>
</ul>
The figure below illustrates that by drawing this information together, children can imagine the written form of words they cannot see.
<div id="attachment_268521" style="width: 860px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-268521" class="wp-image-268521 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Figure_01.png" alt="" width="850" height="273" />The formation of ‘Finch’. Author provided</div>
We taught children in Year 4 the pronunciations and meanings of some made-up words. We told them the words were inventions coming from “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2010.11.005">Professor Parsnip’s</a> invention factory”. Each invention had a name and a function. A “nesh”, for example, is an automatic card shuffler (see below).
During this training period children learned some new oral vocabulary but they never saw any of the words written down.
Later we took the words the children had learned about and some other words they hadn’t learned about, and put them into some simple sentences. We then tracked the movement of the children’s eyes as they read.
<h2>Previously heard versus previously unheard words</h2>
We found that when children had previously learned about a spoken word, they spent less time looking at it than other words they hadn’t heard about. This suggested their reading was enhanced by their previous oral vocabulary.
The time spent looking at the words they had learned about was also affected by how predictable the spellings of the words were. This revealed that children formed advance expectations about how the words were likely to be spelled.
When a word was spelled in a way that was what they expected to see, this helped their reading. For example, if the children had learned the spoken word “nesh”, we showed them the written word nesh.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YgR-PKh1Ns[/embedyt]
But when we showed them a word that was spelled in a way the children probably did not expect to see, the children were surprised by this and they focused on it longer. For example, the children were surprised when they learned the spoken word “coib” but we showed them the written word koyb.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXHLKBDyik8[/embedyt]
In the two videos, there is a clear difference in reading times for the unpredictably spelled word koyb and the predictably spelled word nesh.
The fact that children’s reading was affected by whether they knew the spoken form of the word and how predictably it was spelled shows that when children hear spoken words they form expectations about what those words should look like before they see them. In turn, this can help their reading.
<h2>Building oral vocabulary and boosting literacy skills</h2>
Making deposits in children’s spoken word banks – their store of words with known pronunciations and meanings – is an important and practical way of helping to support their literacy development.
Classrooms are logical places to teach children new spoken words, but parents can create learning opportunities at home too. If an unfamiliar word arises during conversation or shared book reading, perhaps try starting a dialogue by asking your child whether they have heard it before.

Op-Ed: How building your child’s spoken word bank can boost their capacity to read

The surge in the number of African students in China is remarkable. In less than 15 years the African student body has grown 26-fold – from just under <a href="http://old.moe.gov.cn//publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_850/201001/xxgk_77826.html">2,000</a> in 2003 to almost <a href="http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/gzdt_gzdt/s5987/201604/t20160414_238263.html">50,000</a> in 2015.
According to the <a href="http://data.uis.unesco.org/">UNESCO Institute for Statistics</a>, the US and UK host around 40,000 African students a year. China surpassed this number in 2014, making it the second most popular destination for African students studying abroad, after France which hosts just over 95,000 students.
For years, these numbers have remained untranslated in the online archives of the Chinese Ministry of Education. But a <a href="https://breezegeography.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/stats-on-international-students-studying-in-china/">recent initiative</a> by Michigan State University researchers to translate them introduces the reports to a wider audience.
Not only have these reports revealed the growth in China-Africa ties. They also make it possible to compare China’s international education trends in a global context.
<h2>China’s targeted focus</h2>
Chinese universities are filled with international students from around the world, including Asia, the Americas, Europe and Oceania. The proportion of Asian international students still dwarfs the number of Africans, who make up 13% of the student body. But this number, which is up from 2% in 2003, is growing every year, and much faster than other regions. Proportionally more African students are coming to China each year than students from anywhere else in the world.
This dramatic increase in students from Africa can be explained in part by the Chinese government’s targeted focus on African human resource and education development. Starting in 2000, China’s <a href="http://www.focac.org/eng/">Forum on China-Africa Cooperation</a> summits have promised financial and political support for African education at home and abroad in China.
Since 2006, China has set scholarship targets to aid African students coming to China for study. For example, at the most recent 2015 summit, China pledged to provide <a href="http://www.focac.org/eng/ltda/dwjbzjjhys_1/hywj/t1327961.htm">30,000 scholarships</a> to African students by 2018.
Although China stopped publishing regional scholarship data in 2008, our data analysis using the 2003-2008 data to generate scholarship estimates suggests that this target is on the way to being met. China seems to be upholding the pledges made towards African education.
<h2>Mutual Benefit &#8211; in education and business</h2>
For the Chinese government, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/china-africa-students-scholarship-programme">providing education</a> to Africans is an extension of <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt2tt1tp">China’s soft power</a> – cultivating the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/apr/29/africa-future-leaders-china-aid-programme">next generation</a> of African scholars and elites. The experience that these students get in China can translate into a willingness to work with China and view China’s internal or external policies favourably in the future.
But what do African students gain in return? <a href="http://china-africa.ssrc.org/">China-Africa scholars</a> have <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14767724.2012.750492">found</a> that students head to China for many reasons. Some simply go to pursue an education that is affordable, even without a scholarship, while others go for the chance to develop business connections or learn the language of a country presumed to be a rising power.
Based on <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266296514_African_Students_in_China">several</a> <a href="http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/70764">surveys</a>, most students tend to be enrolled in Chinese-language courses or engineering degrees. The preference for engineering may be due to the fact that many engineering programs offered by Chinese universities for international students are <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266296514_African_Students_in_China">taught in English</a>.
The quality of education has received mixed reviews. Some studies have shown that African students are <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/614089/summary">generally</a> <a href="https://journals.co.za/content/ifepsyc/12/2/EJC38604">satisfied</a> with their Chinese education, as long as they can overcome the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smi.978/full">language barriers</a>. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14767724.2012.750492">Others</a> found that even if students were not impressed with their education, they appreciated the <a href="http://www.sais-cari.org/data-china-africa-trade/">trade</a> and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Chinas-Engagement-with-Africa-David-Dollar-July-2016.pdf">business</a> opportunities that a Chinese education made available to them back home.
<h2>The next generation</h2>
It’s difficult to know exactly which African countries are sending the most students to China. These details are not kept by the Chinese Ministry of Education. But the statistics from <a href="http://is.tsinghua.edu.cn/publish/is/9281/2014/20141223111837219723176/20141223111837219723176_.html">Tsinghua University</a> provide an insight. In the 2015-2016 academic year, the majority of the university’s 111 African students came from Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Morocco, Eritrea, and Cameroon – slightly favouring East Africa.
African students in France <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20130705203103913">overwhelmingly come from</a> francophone West Africa. If Tsinghua’s profile holds true for the larger African student body in China, it means China is an increasingly important player in the education of countries outside of West Africa.
Due to Chinese visa rules, most international students cannot stay in China after their education is complete. This prevents <a href="https://theconversation.com/stemming-reverse-brain-drain-what-would-make-foreign-students-stay-in-the-us-39148">brain-drain</a> and means that China is educating a generation of African students who – unlike their counterparts in France, the US or UK – are <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt2tt1tp">more likely</a> <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266296514_African_Students_in_China">to return home</a> and bring their new education and skills with them.
It’s still too early to tell how these new dynamics might be shaping geopolitics on the continent.
Note: The original, untranslated Chinese Ministry of Education reports are available as follows: <a href="http://www.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_850/201001/xxgk_77826.html">2003</a>, <a href="http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A20/moe_850/200502/t20050206_77817.html">2004</a>, <a href="http://www.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_850/201001/xxgk_77808.html">2005</a>, <a href="http://www.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_850/201001/xxgk_77799.html">2006</a>, <a href="http://www.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s3124/201002/82570.html">2007</a>, <a href="http://www.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s3124/201002/82571.html">2008</a>, <a href="http://www.gov.cn/gzdt/2010-03/22/content_1562026.htm">2009</a>, 2010, <a href="http://www.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s5987/201202/131117.html">2011</a>, <a href="http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/gzdt_gzdt/s5987/201303/t20130307_148379.html">2012</a>, 2013, <a href="http://www.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s5987/201503/184959.html">2014</a>, and <a href="http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/gzdt_gzdt/s5987/201604/t20160414_238263.html">2015</a>. The Ministry archives were missing reports for 2010 and 2013. Student numbers for these years were calculated using the percent-growth reported in 2011 and 2014 reports, respectively.

China tops US and UK as destination for anglophone African students

When searching for a definition of ‘education’ we find two results:
<ul>
<li>The process of receiving systematic instruction</li>
<li>An enlightening experience</li>
</ul>
While I would hope these two are not mutually exclusive, it is useful to pause and consider if the former leads to the latter in our current global system of schooling. During their 12 years (sometimes longer) at school, students are prepared and equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in a series of high-stakes examinations. The results of these exams define whether their schooling has been a success or not. However, I believe that learning is the ultimate purpose of education, not exams or tests.
Examinations should be designed to encourage, recognise and reward learning. They should not be regarded as an end in themselves. It is essential that programmes of study encourage students to develop their own strengths and interests, and cultivate an informed curiosity and a lasting passion for learning. These are traits that are important in developing successful students and future young leaders and therefore must be an important part of our education priorities.
Education is most effective when curriculum, learning and teaching, and assessment are closely aligned – this is the Cambridge philosophy. So what are the skills needed to prepare young people for success in a century that has seen changes in all spheres of life? While difficult to define, it appears that the skills most valued by employers belong to three distinct categories:
<ul>
<li>Higher order thinking skills &#8211; This includes students’ creativity, critical thinking problem solving abilities.</li>
<li>Interpersonal skills &#8211; How young people communicate, collaborate and live in society.</li>
<li>Effective use of technology &#8211; Information and ICT literacy.</li>
</ul>
I am most interested in the first two. Do our education systems develop higher order thinking skills and strong interpersonal skills? In other words, are our young people learning to apply what they’ve learnt beyond the classroom? Can they solve problems creatively, think for themselves, do their own research, communicate it and work with others on a project they’ve designed together? Have they developed an international outlook so that they are ready to compete in our globalised world? These are fundamental attributes needed for life.
At Cambridge International Examinations, we design all our curriculum and assessments with five key learner attributes in mind. These attributes are our way of recognising that students need to develop attitudes and life skills throughout their education, as well as academic skills. We work with schools to help students become:
<ul>
<li>Confident in working with information and ideas.</li>
<li>Responsible for themselves, and respectful of others.</li>
<li>Reflective as learners, constantly developing their ability to learn by reflecting on how they learn best.</li>
<li>Innovative and equipped for new and future challenges.</li>
<li>Engaged, intellectually and socially, feeling ready to make a difference in the world.</li>
</ul>
By developing these attitudes and life skills – in combination with the more systematic development of subject knowledge – we can help make sure that students’ experience of education is enlightening and develops a passion for learning that lasts a lifetime. So that when a student reaches the end of their school years, they are equipped to take on whatever challenges lie ahead and thrive in our fast changing world.

Op-Ed: What are the key ingredients for developing successful young people?

Kieran Guilbert | DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation)
More girls are completing secondary school across sub-Saharan Africa as attitudes change and state spending rises, but some of the most marginalised girls &#8211; like those married young or forced to work &#8211; are still missing out, education experts say.
The percentage of girls completing secondary school has risen in all regions of Africa since 2005, said a recent report by the African Development Bank, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the U.N. Development Programme.
Almost twice as many girls in East Africa and three times as many in Central Africa completed secondary education in 2014 as in 2005, according to the annual African Economic Outlook report, which was published at the end of last month.
Yet more must be done to support girls across the continent who are not in school &#8211; such as those who are married or forced to work &#8211; if the world is to meet a U.N. global goal to ensure all children receive secondary schooling by 2030, experts say.
The deadline on universal education was agreed as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) &#8211; a global plan to end poverty, hunger, advance equality and protect the environment.
&#8220;Many of the most marginalised girls from the poorest households do not make the transition from primary to secondary, or ever set foot in a school at all,&#8221; Paola Babos of the U.N. children&#8217;s agency (UNICEF) told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Attitudes towards education for girls are changing across Africa &#8211; as more and more parents see sending their daughters to school not only as a chance to improve their futures, but also to boost the family&#8217;s fortunes, according to Plan International.
Yet issues such as child marriage and teenage pregnancy threaten progress in closing the education gender gap in sub-Saharan Africa, said Vernor Munoz, an education expert at Plan.
&#8220;We need to look beyond education to society &#8211; and tackle prejudices, stereotypes and harmful practices that prevent girls being in school,&#8221; Munoz told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
While the gender education gap is closing on the continent, of 19 countries worldwide with fewer than 90 girls for every 100 boys in secondary school, two thirds of them are in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the U.N. educational body UNESCO.
The world is set to miss by more than half a century the SDG on education due to under-funding, UNESCO said last September.
Yet African governments have scaled up spending on education in recent years, found the African Economic Outlook report.
The average percentage of state expenditure on education in sub-Saharan Africa between 2010 and 2014 was 16 percent, higher than the global average of 14 percent, the report showed.
(Reporting By Kieran Guilbert, Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women&#8217;s rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit <a href="http://news.trust.org/">news.trust.org</a>)

More African girls going to school, yet poorest miss out: experts

It has become unfashionable to admit that one doesn’t really understand what phrases like “decolonising knowledge” or “a decolonised curriculum” mean. This is unfortunate. The process of coming to understand what decolonisation of knowledge might be is essential to achieving it – and that process is definitely not yet complete.
Decolonisation is not always a welcome concept in some quarters of academia. If curricula and ideas and knowledge are colonised, that means they have been shaped in part by considerations that are political, economic, social, cultural or otherwise tangential to the ideals of academic inquiry.
Admitting a need to decolonise any part of one’s discipline means admitting that it was formerly colonised to some degree. This in turn means admitting that what one previously touted as objective and untainted by the fleeting considerations of worldly affairs was, in fact, mired in them. Academics are much happier asserting that knowledge is power than they are conceding that power is knowledge.
Seen in this light, the decolonisation of knowledge is primarily an intellectual rather than a political project. It attempts to “disinfect” academic activities: to rid teaching, research, and institutional behaviour of influences that have little to do with the fair-minded pursuit of knowledge and truth.
But this is not the only approach. Decolonisation of knowledge is a contested concept. This “disinfecting” or critical model of decolonisation stands in contrast to a line of thought that sees knowledge as relative to a perspective, a cultural context, or something else again.
Decolonisation as cultural relativism
Decolonisation is sometimes presented, not as an attempt to resurrect the dispassionate search for knowledge, but as a rejection of the idea of objectivity, which is seen as a sort of heritage of colonial thinking.
Sometimes the idea is that notions like truth, fact or what “works” are fundamentally western and are imposed on other cultures. At other times, the idea seems to me that facts and truths are local. So what is discovered or expressed in one time or place will necessarily be inapplicable in another.
This line of thinking takes its cue from the fact that if you have sufficient power over someone you can enforce your views on them – or simply kill them if they disagree. Totalitarian states typically adopt policies that involve both silencing and killing dissenters.
Karl Marx famously <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm">maintained</a> that
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.
Michel Foucault thought that power and truth are closely related, or even the same thing, which he <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/#4.4">sometimes called “power/knowledge”</a>.
On this line of thought, the attempt to critically evaluate the opinion of another person or group looks like an exercise in power politics. It’s a short step from there to the idea that, in order to rid ourselves of the effects of a colonial past, we must all desist from asserting our beliefs over others’ beliefs. There is African belief, and European belief, and your belief, and mine – but none of us have the right to assert that something is true, is a fact, or works, contrary to anyone else’s belief.
On this view, to decolonise knowledge is to understand this and so to adopt a certain very broad kind of relativism.
Critical decolonisation
I prefer the first understanding of decolonisation over the second: critical decolonisation over relativistic decolonisation.
One very simple reason is that the kind of relativism I have described is associated with traditions of thought that are European in origin: Marxism and postmodernism. I am sceptical of assertions that these views are of universal application. I worry that some of these assertions may themselves express a colonial heritage.
But I have more substantive concerns, too. One of these is a point made by Ghanaian-British author and philosopher <a href="http://appiah.net/">Kwame Anthony Appiah</a> in his book <a href="http://appiah.net/books/cosmopolitanism/">Cosmopolitanism</a>. Appiah values conversation very highly and rejects relativism in part because it doesn’t motivate conversation. As he puts it:
If we cannot learn from one another what is right to think and feel and do, then conversation between us will be pointless. Relativism of that sort isn’t a way to encourage conversation; it’s just a reason to fall silent.
The great attraction of uncritical decolonisation is that it appears to prevent us coming into conflict with each other. We simply accept that everyone is entitled to their views. But a moment’s thought shows there’s no protection against possible conflict. I might believe I can do things you don’t want me to do. I might even have views about your views.
The trouble is that ideas can conflict by themselves. They can logically contradict each other. They can mandate actions that are mutually exclusive. We might think very differently – but we share the same world.
The risk of being wrong
Critical decolonisation means accepting risk of error. It means considering whether indigenous knowledge systems might contain truths that western science has not accessed. But it also means accepting that in some cases indigenous knowledge systems might be wrong.
Critical decolonisation also means considering whether what we find in the canon of an academic discipline whose history has been dominated by Europe and America is really up to much. This is a very scary and painful question for academics who have devoted their lives to the study of what they have been told are works of genius.
Critical decolonisation leaves room for local knowledge. A policy to improve infant nutrition may <a href="https://philosophy.ucsd.edu/_files/ncartwright/phil152/PSA-2-Nov-0900.pdf">work in Tamil Nadu and fail in Bangladesh</a>. The relativist stance says that whether it works depends on your point of view. But this is a poor analysis of this case: it works in one and not the other, whichever place you are looking from.
The better approach is to seek an explanation for the difference: in this case, that the role of mothers in buying and distributing food differs between the two places. One can reject universal truths without endorsing relativism.
If done properly and critically a lot of what we count as great will fall in the process of decolonising knowledge. A lot of formerly unvoiced and unheard ideas will come to light. The process of critical scrutiny is essential to the success of this project – and nobody gets a free pass.

It will take critical, thorough scrutiny to truly decolonise knowledge

<ul>
<li>The budget would cut $1.7 trillion in spending over 10 years.</li>
<li>Medicaid, student loans and food stamps would see big reductions.</li>
<li>EPA, State Department and Education Department funds would be slashed.</li>
<li>Economists doubt the White House&#8217;s growth projections.</li>
</ul>
The White House is seeking to slash federal spending by $3.6 trillion over the next decade through steep cuts across most agencies and tough new restrictions on aid to the poor — a dramatic rethinking of the role of government in the American economy.
About half of the money — $1.7 trillion over 10 years — comes from changes to programs such as Medicaid, food stamps and federal student loans that swelled during the Great Recession and long recovery. It also includes previously announced double-digit spending cuts next fiscal year for the Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department and the Education Department, among others, and eliminates popular institutions such as the National Endowment for the Arts.
The president&#8217;s proposed fiscal 2018 budget became public Monday night.
<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/defense/" target="_self">Defense</a> is one of the few areas slated for increased funding. The White House is requesting an additional $25 billion next fiscal year, following a similar bump in the current budget. Veterans Affairs would also get a boost next year, along with the National Nuclear Security Administration.
<blockquote>
<h2>&#8220;We are no longer going to measure compassion by the number of programs or the number of people on those programs. We will measure compassion and success by the number of people who get off those programs.&#8221;-Mick Mulvaney, director, OMB </h2>
</blockquote>
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney on Monday called the proposal a &#8220;taxpayer-first budget.&#8221;
&#8220;We are no longer going to measure compassion by the number of programs or the number of people on those programs,&#8221; he told reporters. &#8220;We will measure compassion and success by the number of people who get off those programs.&#8221;
Reforming entitlement programs has long been a goal for Republican leadership — and some were disappointed that <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/donald-trump/" target="_self">President Donald Trump</a> vowed on the campaign trail not to touch the two biggest ones, Social Security and Medicare. But Trump left the door open to overhauling the patchwork system of other safety net programs that Republicans argue have become unwieldy and wasteful. Social Security disability insurance, for example, is in the crosshairs, though retirement payments are not. The proposal estimates that eliminating fraud and waste alone will save the government $143 billion over a decade.
&#8220;I think that it is a key step toward putting the budget toward a sustainable path to balance,&#8221; said Romina Boccia, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. &#8220;While I think this is a good start, and the budget includes important reforms, we do need to continue to push for broader reforms to Medicare and Social Security because they are the key drivers of our growing spending and debt.&#8221;
Tackling entitlement programs puts the White House on politically treacherous terrain: Trump will need backing from at least some Democrats for his proposals to pass the Senate. But several line items they had dubbed &#8220;poison pills&#8221; during negotiations over the 2017 budget have reappeared in the new proposal, including funding for a wall along the Mexican border.
And on Monday, Democrats were already starting to draw battle lines, calling the programs critical for workers who are still struggling to recover from the recession.
&#8220;It&#8217;s a budget that takes a meat cleaver to the middle class by gutting the programs that help them the most, including many that help create jobs and power the economy,&#8221; Senate Minority Leader <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/chuck-schumer/" target="_self">Chuck Schumer</a> (D-N.Y.) said Monday on the floor.
The size and scope of the White House&#8217;s proposed cuts could make it tough to swallow even among Republicans. The proposal includes, for example, changing the funding formula for Medicaid, which some GOP moderates and state governors have opposed. It also calls for changes to &#8220;CHIP,&#8221; which provides benefits for low-income children who do not qualify for Medicaid. Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was one of the original sponsors of the bill that created the program.
<blockquote>
<h3>&#8220;The president &#8230; should not rely on unrealistic and rosy economic growth projections to pay for his proposals or fix our debt. It is not a good idea to spend as if you won the lottery in hopes that you actually do.&#8221;-Judd Gregg and Edward Rendell, co-chairmen, Campaign to Fix the Debt</h3>
</blockquote>
The budget assumes the White House will be able to dramatically lower tax rates for households and businesses. The administration has proposed reducing the corporate rate to 15 percent and streamlining individual rates from seven brackets to just three. The White House provided no additional details about its proposal Monday but said it is a key component to pushing economic growth to 3 percent.
Mulvaney said the deep spending cuts, coupled with faster growth, will reduce the deficit as a percentage of GDP starting next year. He said the budget will balance by 2027.
However, many economists doubt the administration will be able to reliably and repeatedly hit a 3 percent target — even with significant tax cuts — due to the country&#8217;s aging population and declining productivity. The Congressional Budget Office currently estimates growth at about 1.9 percent.
&#8220;The president is right to focus on job creation and tax reform. But he should not rely on unrealistic and rosy economic growth projections to pay for his proposals or fix our debt,&#8221; said Judd Gregg and Edward Rendell, co-chairmen of the Campaign to Fix the Debt. &#8220;It is not a good idea to spend as if you won the lottery in hopes that you actually do.&#8221;
But Mulvaney said the administration stands by its forecast and that economists are underestimating the benefits of Trump&#8217;s proposals.
&#8220;That assumes a pessimism about America, about the economy, about the people, about its culture that we&#8217;re simply refusing to accept,&#8221; Mulvaney said. &#8220;We do not believe that [3 percent] is something fanciful.&#8221;

education

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Op-Ed: The end of South African universities?

Op-Ed: How building your child’s spoken word bank can boost their capacity to read

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Op-Ed: What are the key ingredients for developing successful young people?

More African girls going to school, yet poorest miss out: experts

It will take critical, thorough scrutiny to truly decolonise knowledge

White House 2018 budget proposal is out, and it slashes the social safety net

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education

Open the door to thriving career opportunities abroad with an MBA degree

Going to school? Unlikely if you’re a girl in South Sudan, report says

The power and politics of knowledge: what African universities need to do

Op-Ed: Decolonising research methodology must include undoing its dirty history

AfricaCom 2017 – Celebrating 20 years of Africa’s telecoms and technology journey

Op-Ed: Are graduates prepared for the job market? Rethinking Africa’s university model

Nigeria’s quality of education under scrutiny

Op-Ed: The lesser known and scarier facts about unemployment in South Africa

Op-Ed: Can South Africa’s basic education be fixed?

South African universities need to rethink how they invest their millions

Op-Ed: The end of South African universities?

Op-Ed: How building your child’s spoken word bank can boost their capacity to read

China tops US and UK as destination for anglophone African students

Op-Ed: What are the key ingredients for developing successful young people?

More African girls going to school, yet poorest miss out: experts

It will take critical, thorough scrutiny to truly decolonise knowledge

White House 2018 budget proposal is out, and it slashes the social safety net

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