Scott Firsing, University of North Carolina Wilmington
Governments often have limited knowledge of chemical production as it is the preserve of the private sector. Often these facilities are not as well secured as government facilities.
South Africa must examine how science funding is allocated to universities. It also needs to acknowledge that not all universities should be focusing on research and development.
South Africa’s Parliamentary Budget Office had 10 months to prepare its findings about the cost of a nuclear programme. Its final report was little more than a summary of other institutions’ work.
South Africa’s ruling party has lost its moral and intellectual capacity to claim the mantle of leadership. The country’s economy won’t recover unless new political alignments emerge.
Attacks on the South African Reserve Bank and events in India that led to the exit of the governor of the country’s central bank are a warning that banks aren’t immune from political meddling.
The system of apartheid is long gone. But its legacy of poor funding for historically black universities - and of planning that banished black universities to cities’ margins - remains.
A change of attitude which comes with some deep introspection by South African business leaders can help address some of the country’s key socioeconomic challenges.
Schools and universities in post-colonial contexts still operate within the logic of coloniality. This is starkly illustrated by their language policies.
Hair has long been modified for aesthetic and other ends. But skewed power structures have meant that women, particularly women of colour, have borne the brunt of stereotyping and prejudice.
E-hailing services have vowed to revolutionise the transportation industry. But they’ve also left city officials scratching their heads about regulations and traditional metered taxi drivers fuming.
The lack of service integration and the paucity of welfare services make poor people’s task of caring for their familes much harder. A small monthly cash transfer can’t solve all their challenges.
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