Roné McFarlane

Here is a puzzle. People in sub-Saharan Africa tend to be *twice* as religious as the rest of the world, yet countries in the region provide *half* as much state support for religion.

Why?

Hint: It isn't about state capacity. #polrel

Gauteng education MEC addresses overcrowding claims in high-pressure schools | The Citizen With hundreds of high-pressure schools in Gauteng, the education department says it is working to relieve pressure in these schools.

Please can we have just one news report on these so-called satellite schools that actually explain what on earth they are? The GDE reportedly built 1 school last year so what exactly is it that they're building 4000 of?

www.citizen.co.za/news/south-a...

Given that #BELA was not brought into effect when the President originally signed it, there was never any "suspension of two clauses". The whole Bill was "suspended" until the President finally brought it into effect. We really need to stop just repeating words politicians say.

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Andisiwe Makinana | Do not undermine due process in the name of 'consultative' GNU | News24 The war of words between senior government leaders, Cosatu and the Democratic Alliance, including calls for Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube to be axed, could have been avoided had the "aggriev...

Great contribution by Andi Makinana on the completely unacceptable & unconstitutional language the "GNU" used around BELA and the possibility of changing a law already signed by the President. Asks the pertinent question "Where was Parliament?"
www.news24.com/news24/opini...

There is nothing in the proclamation that suggests any delay in implementation or in sections taking effect. All of #BELA is now law.

'Agreement bears no influence' - Ramaphosa spokesperson on BELA Act talks | News24 President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged an agreement on the BELA Act by the Minister of Basic Education and the Solidarity union but clarified it doesn't affect discussions on contentious sections.

Theres much confusion about #BELA & politicians arent helping. This @news24southafrica.bsky.social article mentions a requirement that school governing bodies submit language & admissions policies to provinces for approval, but that requirement was removed by the NCOP
www.news24.com/news24/south...

"We emerged bleary-eyed about eight hours later to dispatch the final version to the Committee," he says. Incredible what a contribution cloud storage has made lol.

Nuts recollection by Justice Bertelsmann on drafting the SA Schools Act: "On the day before the draft was due... we worked into the small hours of the morning on the final version on a single computer, when one of our team members at about 02:00 inadvertently wiped out the complete document..."

Stilfontein’s dangerous and desperate illegal mining industry Zama zamas search for gold in a vast and unmapped underground network of tunnels

Kimon de Greef, Ihsaan Haffejee and Kimberly Mutandiro have been at Stilfontein reporting on the trapped zama zamas.
Here Kimon describes the illegal mining situation (Ihsaan's pics mostly)
groundup.org.za/article/stil...
Here Kimon describes the rescue operation:
groundup.org.za/article/scen...

I'm not saying that that transformation isn't a good thing. I'm just saying that's about transforming the education elite, not about systemic equity.

I think it's politically convenient for the whole middle class to see the transformation of former Model C schools as being about systemic equity. It allows us to ignore the fundamental ways in which inequality is built into the system and the fact that there is no clear way out of it.

I'm really not sure about this interpretation of BELA. It seeks to address a particular injustice in elite education in SA, which is a good thing, but I'm not sure it is fundamentally about equity across the system.