Nelson Rholihlahla Mandela

The history and background of Nelson Rholihlahla Mandela means so much more to us than just being an international icon and the first Democratic President of South Africa. He is Madiba, our father. He was born and spent most of his formative years in the Eastern Cape.

"I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society. If need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die". (Nelson Mandela)

Nelson Rholihlahla Mandela was born in Qunu, a small village near Mthatha in the former Transkei, (Eastern Cape) on 18 July 1918. As a member of the Madiba clan, he was raised amongst amaXhosa royalty.

He was a paramount figure of the formation of the ANC Youth League and, in 1991, he was elected President of the African National Congress.

Upon returning from Algiers after military training, Nelson Mandela was arrested and charged with attempting to overthrow the Apartheid Government. Convicted of sabotage and treason, he was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island (South Africa's Alcatraz).

The South African government responded to international pressure by releasing him on 11 February 1990 after 27 years imprisonment. He and South African President FW de Klerk jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize 1993 in recognition of their combined efforts towards reconciliation and peace in South Africa.

On 10 May 1994, he became the first democratically elected President of South Africa after a landslide victory in the April 1994 elections; it was the country's first ever election where all people (all races) of South Africa were allowed to vote. As an act of reconciliation, he appointed FW de Klerk, his formal rival, as one of two vice-presidents.

He retired from public life in June 1999, and is currently residing in Houghton, Johannesburg with his wife, Graca Machel. They exchanged vows on his 80th birthday in 1998.

He regularly visits his birthplace annually hosting local children to a Christmas Party. He has also founded the Nelson Mandela Children's Home, who take in AIDS orphans. They are educated and cared for by the tireless efforts made by volunteers and staff of the home. The 46664 Concerts which were held in Cape Town and Johannesburg respectively and the profits thereof were donated to the home for children.

This great man, whose second name, Rholihlahla, literally means "the one who pulls the tree branch" and means "trouble-maker", united his country by urging citizens to stand up for themselves; to "make a noise" and "shake things up" for the further development and just treatment of all human beings, world-wide; to reconciliation, not revenge.

Nelson Mandela remains South Africa's best known and loved hero. He is the world's icon of peace and reconciliation, and throughout history he will be seen as personifying "a spirit of freedom" internationally.

Errors and Omissions Excepted

(Courtesy safari-central.com)

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Walk with the Giants in life

It is without a doubt the best thing to associate yourself with strong individuals if you really want to be such. Being with the weak will mislead you in thinking that you are the best, the strongest, etc. whilst you're actually the weakest.

A story goes: a mouse was crossing a bridge with an elephant. The bridge shook while they were crossing. Once they got to the other side the mouse exclaimed "Boy! We shook that bridge, didn't we?!"

You see, when you hang around with the big boys, the rich, the clever bunch, and so on, you will first feel that you are also big, rich, clever, until you really learn the skills and one day be what they are.

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Reitz 4 to be served court papers

6 Jul 2010

Bloemfontein - The Equality Court in Bloemfontein is to serve papers on Wednesday on four former Free State University students who made a video in which five black workers were allegedly humiliated.

The SA Human Rights Commission's Free State head Mothusi Lepheane said on Tuesday the commission handed in its papers at the Free State High Court in Bloemfontein last Wednesday.

A High Court official said the papers were to be served on the men on Wednesday.

In a statement, the commission said it asked the Equality Court to grant the women punitive damages of R1m each.

The commission said the students should also be declared guilty of unfair discrimination, by making and distributing the video.

The four students - RC Malherbe, Johnny Roberts, Schalk van der Merwe and Danie Grobler - made a video of an initiation-type ceremony in 2007 while living at the university's now-closed Reitz men's residence.

The video was leaked to the media in February 2008.

Humiliated
In it the four women cleaners and a man are seen on their hands and knees eating food which had apparently been urinated into by a white student. It also showed the women drinking from bottles of beer, racing against each other, dancing and playing rugby.

On Tuesday, the Freedom Front Plus criticised Free State HRC's "unforgiving" attitude towards the students. FF Plus youth leader Jan van Niekerk said the commission had found the students guilty without a hearing.

"What is worrying is the fact that the HRC already decided who was guilty, without any input from the Reitz students."

Van Niekerk said various complaints made by the FF Plus at the HRC's local office had never been investigated or followed-up.

"The FF Plus leader in the Free State (Abrie Oosthuizen) on 2 October 2009, even complained to President Jacob Zuma, at the way the HRC handles its cases."

Van Niekerk said the R1m claimed from each of the students in the Equality Court matter showed a clear grudge against the students.

The students had already suffered a huge loss due to the "unjust" publicity and views expressed before their hearing, he said.

The four also faced charges of crimen injuria in the Bloemfontein Magistrate's Court. This matter was postponed to July 27 for trial.

SAPA

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New curriculum, new language options

2010-07-06 19:47

Pretoria - Pupils now have the option of learning in their mother tongue for the first three years of schooling as part of the new curriculum, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said on Tuesday.

"The language chosen by the learner as a language of learning and teaching shall be taught as a subject, or as a first additional language from Grade 1," Motshekga told the media in Pretoria.

However, Motshekga emphasised that English would not replace pupils' home languages in the early grades.

The new curriculum Schooling 2025 would replace the highly criticised outcomes based education (OBE) system introduced in 1998.

However, OBE would not be completely scrapped but would be modified to improve the performance of school pupils.

This followed calls by teacher unions for OBE to be scrapped instead of modified as had been done.

They believed the system was biased and blamed it for the country's high failure and drop-out rates.

Admitting that the old curriculum had major problems, Motshekga said her department was reviewing the design and methodology of the OBE system.

"We have and will continue to make changes on an ongoing basis where they can be made with minimal disruption.

We expect better outcomes from the system."

Some of the changes in the system included the reduction of the number of projects for pupils with every subject in each grade consisting of its own concise curriculum, mapping out what teachers must teach and assess.

The department had since the beginning of the year done away with the need for portfolio files of pupils' assessments and discontinued the Common Tasks for Assessment for Grade 9s.

These changes followed recommendations by a ministerial committee tasked with the review of the implementation of the National Curriculum Statement in 2009.

The committee supported complaints by teachers that they were overloaded with administrative work and that curriculum goals were unrealistic as some pupils lacked resources like study material and access to the internet.

'The last ghost of 1998'

This was the third time the curriculum had been reviewed since its introduction 12 years ago.

Motshekga said this shuffling was "removing the last ghost of 1998" but was not a wholesale abandoning of the system.

"We now talk of a national curriculum and not OBE... It can't be true that we are phasing it out, we want to ensure stability and no fatigue."

Motshekga commended teachers for working hard despite the difficulties with OBE in the last 12 years - a system which she said paid little attention to knowledge but focused on skill and attitude.

"Things will from now on sail smoothly for them... We are giving them a solid base to move up... we are giving them more of less," she explained.

The policy of continuous assessment had also changed, particularly for Grade 7 to 9. Matrics remained unaffected with 75% of their marks coming from the year-end exams and 25% from continuous assessment.

Motshekga said the phasing in of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements in primary schools would only happen next year to allow time for the orientation and training of teachers.

"We will phase in other grades in 2012 so that we can make the necessary preparations," said Motshekga.

She said because some of the changes had policy implications, her department would follow due process and invite public comment.

"Our overarching priority is to bring about a fundamental change in schooling outcomes."

Director general for basic education Bobby Soobrayan said they were comfortable with the curriculum as it now stands and that it would ensure that pupils sufficiently understood key areas like literacy and maths.

He said workbooks were an important addition to the new curriculum as they would provide support to 6.5 million pupils from Grades 1 to 6 and to 180 000 teachers in nearly 20 000 schools.

The reshuffle was well received by those in the industry.

Western Cape education minister Donald Grant said if properly implemented, these changes could improve education outcomes.

"We are also especially pleased that the changes will bring back a far greater focus on the use of textbooks and on content knowledge - two aspects we are already focusing on strongly in the Western Cape," Grant said.

"The changes will go a long way to restoring a reasonable balance in the delivery of the curriculum."

Grant said teachers would now have more time to plan classroom schedules and support individual pupils instead of being overburdened with administrative duties.

Leader of the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of South Africa Esrah Ramasehla, commended Motshekga and Soobrayan for embarking on a "coherent" long-term plan for improving education in the country.

"The review process should herald a period of stability and greater confidence in the curriculum."

SAPA

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