Focus 55 Chapters

March 2014 IPID Report in re the Alleged Illegal Rendition of Zimbabwean Nationals

The purported IPID Report dated 18 March 2014 as it was first released in the Times Live article "Police watchdog does mystery U-turn on Dramat case", 22 February 2015.

March 2014 IPID Report in re the Alleged Illegal Rendition of Zimbabwean Nationals

The purported IPID Report dated 18 March 2014 as it was first released in the Times Live article "Police watchdog does mystery U-turn on Dramat case", 22 February 2015.

Purported IPID Report - 22 January 2014

First published in the TimesLive article "Police watchdog does mystery U-Turn on Dramat Case", 22 February 2015.

Purported IPID Report - 22 January 2014

First published in the TimesLive article "Police watchdog does mystery U-Turn on Dramat Case", 22 February 2015.

Right of Reply

Pallo Jordan goes round in circles in his caricature of my book, seeking to reduce it to a simplistic conspiracy theory which no one can seriously entertain.

The Poverty of Ideas: South African Democracy and the Retreat of Intellectuals

The Poverty of Ideas is a gigantic failure. It claims to be about intellectuals’ retreat within the South African democracy. It is not. Instead, it hosts a number of pieces that do not, as a collection, adequately speak to the book’s overall inspiration.

The Poverty of Ideas: South African Democracy and the Retreat of Intellectuals

The editors of this volume, William Gumede, author of Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC (2005) and Leslie Dikeni, a Research Associate at the Department of International Politics at the University of Pretoria, decry what they call the retreat of intellectuals since the advent of democracy in 1994.

A Narrative My First-Generation Matric Journey

I made my first stab at schooling at the height of Mangope’s reign of the Bophuthatswana homeland, in Losasaneng village, the mining district of Taung. At that time Losasaneng village possessed only two schools, namely, Retshegeditse primary and Batlanang junior secondary school.

Bullying: The Monster in the Dark

South Africa, obsessed with violence, has become consumed with false hope. We think we can make violence go away with policies and procedures but we are failing as the problem still persists. Our obsession is understandable, given the soaring crime rate and the increasing number of violent activities dominating the news headlines.

Creating networks of productivity and the third innovation space in education

My contribution has been influenced by previous research on complexities of organisations1 where I examined change management within an educational setting. That research showed unequivocally that the transformation of education in South Africa was a complex exercise.

Education delivery in the poorest nodes

South Africa enjoys a rare distinction of having gone through all the convulsions and outpouring of anger associated with regime change – without actually changing the ruling regime at all.

Public School Governance in South Africa

Given the painful, complex and controversial history of schooling in South Africa, it was unlikely that any model chosen for the management and control of our public schools would satisfy all role-players.

Re-Imagining the Social in South Africa: Critique, Theory and Post-apartheid Society

The humanities are experiencing an ongoing existential crisis. When our democracy was born it made intuitive sense to imagine that we could only dismantle our status as one of the world’s two or three most unequal nations by focusing on practical skills development in our education system.

Review - Bobby Godsell

Everatt tells the story of the role and relationship of individuals drawn from South Africa’s racial minorities (but in particular white) in the ANC-lead struggle to end white minority rule, in the period 1945 to 1960.

Review - Michael Cardo

Racial reconciliation and “rainbow nation”-building, the dominant themes of Nelson Mandela’s presidency, gave way to a narrow, self-regarding, racially hypersensitive strain of Africanism under Thabo Mbeki.

Review - Thabo Rapoo

This book, according to the author, began life as a doctoral thesis written in the 1980s – the first question that came to my mind was, why not do something new and fresh rather than recycling an old piece of work done twenty years ago?

The Role of Community in Education: A Practitioner’s Reflection

A professional community organiser works with leaders within communities to promote social and economic changes. In this regard the organiser plays diverse roles that are intended to build the capacity of people to gain collective awareness and confidence to confront public issues that impact on their lives.

Focus 59 - November 2010 - Making South Africa Work: Universalising Competence

We take our lead in this edition from Daniel de Kadt’s challenging exposition of why human capital matters. de Kadt goes beyond the usual rhetoric of the importance of human capital and contextualises it politically and socially. All who are interested in South Africa’s developmental trajectory should spend time reflecting on his observations and conclusion.