The imposition of the fee free higher education proposal on South Africa’s National Treasury without due consideration represents an escalation of the state capture led by President Jacob Zuma.
Land ownership patterns in South Africa have not really changed since the advent of democracy.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma seems to be making a final push to secure the nuclear power deal before his tenure comes to an end. But it won’t be easy.
Rural areas across South Africa are hosting battles for control of land.
Reuters/Yannis Behrakis
A different form of state capture is underway in South Africa’s rural areas where traditional leaders are selling off people’s land to miners. But communities are fighting back.
Predatory publishers are vultures feeding on academics’ worries about output and incentives.
Ondacaracola/Shutterstock
If there’s a general sense that academic publication is about knowledge dissemination rather than meeting performance targets, academics and universities become less vulnerable to predatory journals.
South African President Jacob Zuma. Mounting allegations of corruption at home are having international repercussions.
Reuters/Mark Schiefelbein
There are disturbing questions around the complicity - witting or unwitting - of UK global financial institutions in the transnational network set up by President Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family.
South Africa boasts world class universities. It must not allow their quality to drop.
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While many South African police officers, who were born into poverty, grew to appreciate the job, they want more for their children - careers requiring degrees - and work to provide them.
Getting access to a university doesn’t necessarily mean feeling comfortable in that space.
Ian Barbour/Flickr
Students experience intense feelings of discomfort, confusion and even embarrassment at being classified as “different” and an “anomaly” alongside the norm of white academic success.
The Taung child (foreground) was the first of a long series of human ancestors discovered in Africa.
Julien Benoit
Recent research suggests that humankind’s origins lay outside of Africa. This is the nature of science: a paradigm that cannot be questioned on a regular basis becomes a dogma.
South African Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba kicked the can of change down the road during his medium term budget speech.
Reuters/Rogan Ward
South Africa’s finance minister was honest about the problems facing the country. But he made no real suggestions that the government will start doing things differently.
The National Research Foundation doesn’t have enough money for the growing number of researchers who qualify for “incentive” funding.
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South Africa’s National Research Foundation will dramatically scale back “incentive” funding to rated researchers, both those who already have a rating and those who will be rated in the future.
People who unexpectedly lose a loved should be identified early enough and appropriately counselled.
Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters.
The unexpected death of a loved one is a traumatic experience. It’s important to identify high risk individuals to provide counselling and social support.
Barkly Pass, the stratotype for the Elliot Formation. These beautiful rocks hold ancient secrets.
Lara Sciscio
The earth’s own magnetic field offers a useful way to measure the age of rocks - information that can help unpack ancient events and aid our understanding of the present.
Country superstar Dolly Parton has a huge following across Africa.
Cathal McNaughton/Reuters
Archaeology is not only about stones and bones: it is mainly about the people of the past. DNA is one way to get from the stones and the bones to the people and their stories.
Khanya College’s curriculum was quite different from the one taught at other universities of the time. Its students studied oral African literature and history alongside Western literature.
Research of ancient DNA has tended to ignore previous studies about the bones themselves.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
A rush of ancient DNA projects in Africa has presented the curators of archaeological skeletons with ethical issues because research requires the destruction of human bone.
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand