You are Invited to the South African Book Awards – 2023 to be hosted online on Tuesday, 3 October @ 12pm (South African Time). These annual Book Awards recognize books that are popular with Booksellers and the public, and celebrate the creativity and skills of Authors, Publishers, and their support teams, who came together in the past year to entertain, educate, and inform us. South Africa has a rich literary history, including 2 Nobel prizes for Literature. We encourage everyone to read more, support our Authors and Publishers, and buy these and and books from their local Bookstores. After a process of selection and voting the following have been shortlisted in the 4 categories below: Fiction > Doolhof by Rudie […]
The Education SectorHentie Gericke The academic year won’t push into 2021. The school year for grades R to 11 will complete on 15 December 2020 with a short break between 26 and 30 October. The new terms are Term 3: 24 August – 23 October and Term 4: 2 November – 15 December. Matric exams will also be concluded by 15 December, the department said, with marking expected to be done by 22 January 2021, and the results released on 23 February 2021. The new school year will commence on 25 January 2021 for teachers – and for pupils a few days later. In the Eastern Cape, Mary Bothma reports: “Schools with own funding are requesting quotations for budget purposes […]
Initially, employers lodged claims under TERS by emailing a designated UIF email address. However, to simplify and expedite the application process, the UIF has recently developed an online portal to lodge claims under TERS. To assist employers in lodging a claim under TERS using the online application process, the steps to be taken are as follows: Step One: Go to Website Enter the URL https://uifecc.labour.gov.za/covid19 into any web browser. Step Two: Register as User Register as a user by clicking on the “Register” button which appears on the top left of the application system homepage. The employer will have to register as a user of the online platform by providing certain information such as, for example, the employer’s UIF reference […]
Schools won’t resume in May 2020. Senior officials will start on Monday 4 May to prepare for the return of pupils. School management will go back on 11 May and teachers on the 18 May. Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga says the school calendar’s been adjusted to save the academic year. Each province will have its comprehensive plan for the reopening of the schools. [Video: Minister Angie Motshekga’s speech] Image: Element5 Digital/Unsplash
Image: Harinath R/Pixabay The Department of Basic education on 18 April, announced the postponement of the May/June Matric examination. More than 350 000 part-time learners some who did not meet the pass requirements and others who want to rewrite to improve their marks will have to wait until November 2020. [Read more]
All higher education institutions (public and private universities and TVET colleges) will remain closed under lockdown level 4. This decision was made to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus and to save the 2020 academic year but not at the expense of saving lives. The risk of an early return to 2.5 million students and staff are far too great. Minister Blade Nzimande said that the 2020 university academic year could be extended into early 2021. The 2021 academic year will align with the plans of the DBE regarding the organisation of the Grade 12 examination. TVET colleges have to re-organise their 2020 academic year. No student will be left behind. This depends on the development of the pandemic. […]
Good ideas are few and far between in the shackles of lockdown, but the creative team at LAPA publishers put their heads together to come up with the wonderful idea of Tippie-branded masks. The much-loved character, the creation of illustrator Zinelda McDonald, features in the Learn To Read series, and will now help to make ‘masking up’ just a tad less scary for young readers. Sylvia de Wet, CEO of LAPA, gave some insights as to how it all came about: ‘We made the masks by combining a lot of creative people in the process and we all did our magic from home. Our production team was in contact with an enthusiastic entrepreneur with a vinyl printer at home, and […]
With the coronavirus steadily spreading around the globe, the first sign of things to come was the postponement of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in February. The fair was supposed to take place from 30 March to 2 April, and was initially rescheduled for 4 to 7 May this year before being called off completely on 11 March. The London Book Fair, which was to run 10 to 12 March, announced on 4 March they were cancelling until 2021. This left many South African publishers who regularly attend the fair either stuck in London or forced to cancel their travel plans. Those who had travelled faced 14 days of quarantine upon their return. While SAPnet reported an 8,6% decline in […]
The COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted the education of children and students globally. More than 120 countries including South Africa, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, have shut their schools. This means that more than half the world’s student population – 1,2 billion children – are forced to stay away from school and universities because of a virus. However, schools remain open for younger children in Sweden. Singapore has halved class sizes, instituted strict hygiene measures, and staggered break periods to reduce playground contact. During the 2014 Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone the government provided educational radio programmes to listeners five days a week while schools were closed, maintaining a link to the curriculum for the duration. The Goodthingsguy published weblinks which Jean Parnell suggested […]
Minister of Higher education, science and technology, Dr Blade Nzimande has again reiterated that eliminating corruption and maladministration in NSFAS is a priority. Placed under administration in August of 2018 when the scheme was on the brink of collapse, in a statement made in January 2020 it was revealed that five internal forensic investigations have been launched and four criminal cases have been opened, while a further 510 instances of alleged fraud have been handed to the Commercial Crimes Unit. It is significant that much of the fraud and corruption not only benefitted a few individuals but allowed external parties to gain inappropriate control over several institutions. The administrator has outlined the positive rationale behind no longer distributing a specific […]
NSFAS has handed 510 cases of alleged fraud to the commercial crimes unit in the Western Cape. It is also alleged that NSFAS staff members were involved in some of these fraudulent activities. In order to combat fraud, NSFAS has decided to stop disbursing allowances via cell phone technology from 2020.Read the full story here