The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, also known as Wits University, is a leading, internationally-ranked, research-intensive university located in Johannesburg, South Africa, the economic heartland of Africa. Committed to academic and research excellence and social justice, Wits generates high level scarce skills for a globally competitive world, while addressing local social and economic development. At the forefront of a changing society, Wits is a social leader, dedicated to advancing the public good.
Wits is known for its work in deep level mining, science, health sciences, accountancy, law, governance, and the humanities, amongst others. It houses five faculties which comprise 34 schools. Wits offers approximately 3 600 courses to about 32 500 full-time students, of whom about a third are postgraduate and 55% are female. Almost 65% of all doctoral candidates and about half of all enrolments are in the Science, Engineering and Technology fields. Wits has developed about 130 000 graduates in its 93 years of existence. It has a proud record in that about 87% of all publications are in accredited international journals.
Books have active political lives. They inspire social movements and bind people together. Books can stand as short-hand symbols for larger galaxies of ideas.
Window on the world: Children in Nigeria film a Yoruba religious procession on their cellphones.
REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye
After a decade of narrowing fiscal deficits, South Africa has borrowed heavily since 2009 to support the economy. The debt pile exposes the country to the risk of a sell-off by foreign bond holders
A page from a 1934 sex education manual that, like many of its era, managed to be less about sex than about policing racial boundaries.
RPH West, Facts about Ourselves for Growing Boys and Girls (Public Health Department of the City of Johannesburg and the South African Red Cross Society, 1934). Wits Historical Papers, South African Institute of Race Relations Collection, AD 843 RJ/NA 18.
In South Africa’s segregated pre-apartheid state, even sex education was racialised. Christian missionaries had very different lessons for black and white children.
Luangwa River, Zambia, at the start of the dry season.
Emma Archer van Garderen
We need political intervention if southern African countries are to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The MDG for eradicating poverty and hunger has been helped through new high-yielding varieties of rice (right) that can withstand drought in Africa.
Reuters/Erik de Castro
Science has had a crucial role in helping to meet the targets of the Millennium Development Goals. But there’s much more to do.
Student doctor Livhuwani Mashanzhe (R) from the University of Johannesburg takes a blood test from a patient at Kimberley train station in South Africa in this file picture.
Juda Ngwenya/Reuters
Skilled mid level health care workers can relieve the workload of other health care workers and can help make universal health care a reality for South Africans.
A Mozambican woman tries to salvage her belongings after severe flooding.
Grant Lee Neuenburg /Reuters
Failed by the institutions meant to protect them from exploitation, South African Post Offices workers gave up on the legal system, resorting to illegal means.
The expected departure of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Nigeria’s finance minister will leave Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa without a significant voice in the IMF and World Bank.
South Africa’s National Health Insurance aims to ensure universal access to health care – one of the most persistent structural inequalities.
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In South Africa, as in many countries, the release of senior secondary school exam results, referred to locally as “the Matric”, causes a media furore every year. At 18-years-old, students either pass…
Oscar Pistorius has been cleared of premeditated murder charges, but found guilty of culpable homicide – a crime for which he could face a possible 15 years behind bars. He has also been found guilty of…
Bank downgrades have sparked anger in South Africa.
Nic Bothma/EPA
It’s an unnerving time for Africa’s banking industry. On August 19, the ratings agency Moody’s announced it had downgraded by a notch the risk rating of South Africa’s four biggest banks – FirstRand, Standard…
The recent open letter of concern penned by nearly 100 academics from around the world about the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s international education rankings is more than just…
Pistorius trial has kept violence against women on the frontpage.
Kim Ludbrook/EPA
Who is responsible for violence towards women? This question runs like a thread through some of the public discourses swirling around the trial of athlete Oscar Pistorius. In some ways he represents an…
Where is education going for South Africa’s ‘Born Frees’?
teachandlearn
Since the dawn of democracy in South Africa 20 years ago, pass rates in the country’s end-of-school exam – commonly known as the matric – have been steadily on the rise, despite indications that the schooling…
Associate Professor in the SAMRC Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science - PRICELESS SA (Priority Cost Effective Lessons in Systems Strengthening South Africa), University of the Witwatersrand