- Government school classes in lower grades have up to 75 pupils per class, which will contribute to low matriculation pass rates as these large classes do not allow for individual attention or proper learning. Large class sizes exhaust teachers and negatively impact students' education. - For students to succeed in matric exams, they need a strong foundation in language and mathematics, which is difficult in huge classes that do not allow for proper teaching. The problems in primary schools need to be addressed to improve matric results. - Parents and teachers are calling for an education summit to seriously address issues of poor facilities, overcrowding, and low education standards in government schools.

1. East Coast Mail • 30 January 2015 • Page 4have your say
IT’S business as usual at our
local government schools.
The hue and cry about the
poor matriculation results
have been forgotten. This is
evident after enrolments in
the past week.
A quick check with local
teachers has revealed up to
75 pupils per class. This is
in the lower grades. These
pupils will eventually enter
grade 12 and will contrib-
ute to the low pass rate. It is
simple logic: what you sow
is what your reap.
Classes which have more
than 35 pupils become un-
manageable to maintain dis-
cipline or provide individual
assistance. The burden of
checking the homework of
75 pupils, marking 75 as-
signments and tests will ex-
haust any teacher and with it
their enthusiasm for the job.
It seems government will
just not learn the importance
of the formative years of a
child’s schooling life impacts
directly on matric results.
Children are not given a
full opportunity to succeed
with huge classes. Pupils are
pushed through the system
and dropout and failure rates
increase at high school.
Pupils need a proper
grounding in the languages
in which they write exams
and they must possess a good
understanding of numbers.
Huge resources need to be
diverted to primary schools
to stop the rot.
Private schools have
popped up because of the
problems at government
schools. This demand is
growing and so is the price
of a good education.
It is high time teachers and
parents hosted an education
indaba to seriously address
the problems of poor facili-
ties, overcrowding and a low
standard of education.
Business
as usual
mail
EAST COAST
Help me fill these IT jobs
A
N Information and
Communication
Technology (ICT)
professional receiving a call
from Accenture requesting a
meeting, is the equivalent of
the mountain calling Moses. It
is surreal.
Let’s talk Accenture. It is a
technology company at posi-
tion 404 in the Fortune 500
rank, with 280 000 employees
in 120 countries. It was voted
a top hundred company in the
world, to work for. Accenture
is a company that understands
where it comes from, where it
operates and more importantly
it has a pretty good idea where
the world is heading towards.
It turns out to be a really
good story to tell. Accenture
targets individuals and organ-
isations, such as yours truly
and the intrepid CEO of Smart-
Xchange Jonathan Naidoo.
Would I, they asked, commit
to their Skills to Succeed (S2S)
project that will take a few
hundred graduates in a deep
skills intervention programme
as a partnership?
Would I?
Dreams sometime come
true, in your space, in your do-
main and on your terms! This
is digital heaven to me.
Who is this aimed at? Ac-
centure has a dizzy target
of impacting 6,000 previously
disadvantaged youth of South
Africa with market-relevant
ICT skills to either get a job or
build a sustainable business by
2018. The programme aims at
building careers not just creat-
ing jobs.
One does not become a
global, multinational, multi-
cultural company operating in
every imaginable time zone by
luck. I have complete faith in
their model and their method-
ology and having been exposed
to extensive training by them
for this programme, I can
barely wait to start.
Why and how are they do-
ing this? S2S is Accenture’s
global corporate citizenship
initiative, which focuses on
advancing employment and en-
trepreneurship opportunities in
South Africa and other emerg-
ing economies. They provide
contributions of time and em-
ployee skills, working through
difference in our communi-
ties. This is a developmental
effort in the ICT programming
domain.
But aren’t we doing this?
The government has done its
bit to fund the learner. The
university and student have
done what it takes on their
respective part to complete the
degrees. The irony is that the
student remains unemployed in
a country crying out for such
skills.
Which is why Accenture
is doing this. Accenture has
conducted contextual research,
on current business practice for
opportunities and what needed
to be done to make people
employable.
The result? The S2S pro-
gramme aims at developing
skills and employment op-
portunities for young South Af-
ricans with help from partners
In South Africa reasons
for under-equipped graduates
include: lack of resources and
equipment; lack of business
experience of lecturers and
lack of focused mentorship
due to large class sizes and the
changing education landscape
requiring lecturers to pursue
postgraduate studies which
may compete with vocational
skills development.
How will it work? The four-
month program not only equips
a learner with the technical
knowledge, but workplace
integration skills, as well as
project management skills. As
this methodology is currently
used at Accenture to train our
industry leaders, they felt it
is time to share this wealth of
information and skill to the
unemployed youth and build
a greater nation. To ensure
knowledge transfer, class sizes
are restricted to 20, with two
lecturers for intensive learning.
How can you help? Dear
readers please help me place
these super-skilled gradu-
ates, if you have a project or
business opportunity for such
skills. If, on the other hand,
you have skills that will en-
hance my programme, please
also let me know? It will
impact your cousin, colleague,
neighbour or friend.
So how did this happen to
me? Luck? I am beginning
to love Gary Player’s conten-
tion “the more you practice
the luckier you get!” Another
reason, however, is divine
providence in the form of one
Khethiwe Nkuna, head of
corporate social investment at
Accenture Africa. She knows
her core business, understands
what needs to be done, and
defers to the experts.
We have a historic relation-
ship where we took disadvan-
taged learners from iLembe
and turned their lives around,
both academically and socially.
She was headhunted before we
completed the project, which
in any event was an awesome
success. I will write and crow
about her legacy soon. Sister
Khethiwe in her new role
sought me out and made the
proposition.
Would I indeed?
Accenture acknowledges the
previous model of conceptual
to contextual to workplace
learning as a tried and tested
one. S2S evolves this and
draws on Accenture’s core
competencies of training talent
to address the skills needed
to open doors to employment
around the world. We as imple-
menting partners will eagerly
implement this.
Who will we select? We
will target underem-
ployed and unemployed ICT
or engineering graduates from
databases in our province who
have aptitude for software pro-
gramming. I emphasise this is
for programmers. As a gradu-
ate you must convince us you
can indeed write real computer
programs. There will be inter-
views, skills and psychometric
assessments.
So would I? Yes, Yes, and
Yes!
I would because I am an
improbable success from a
tiny matchbox house crammed
with seven people in Unit
5, Chatsworth. I therefore
respectfully modify the Ubuntu
principal of “I am because you
are.” I am an ICT professional
and so will you be. Come hell
or high water. I warily remind
you the word “hell” is both the
noun and the verb. If you have
the appetite, and the tenacity,
apply for this. Watch this space
for further details on how to
apply. Good luck.
Is this not a really, really
good story to tell?
Colin Thakur is the Director of
the iNeSi e-Skills CoLab at the
Durban University of Technol-
ogy. He is a digital activist
keen on upgrading the e-skills
of the nation to enhance the
quality of life. He lives and
subscribes to the mantra One-
person-One-connected device.
BRIJ MAHARAJ
It is that time of the year to venture
into arenas where even disciples
prophetic predictions for the year and
provide insight into the headlines of
2015. The publisher and proprietors
of this paper, and their ancestors, take
no responsibility for the consequences
should any of these prognostications
materialise.
January: 0n the ANC’s 103rd an-
niversary, Jacob Zuma pays homage
to its founding fathers and promises a
commitment to the path of righteous-
-
tive rumination, he comes clean on
Nkandla, and known for his brevity
and disdain for the colonial lexicon,
reduces it all to one word: apartheid.
Eskom continues the confessional
mode by revealing the December
blackouts were the parastatal’s at-
tempt to ensure people took carols by
candlelight seriously and prayed for
the President’s reign and virility, and
his ability to differentiate between the
public and private purse.
February: Peeved that the DA has
been jostled off the front page by the
EFF, Helen Zille announces she is
joining KZN’s nudist club.
Investigative journalists reveal
the self-appointed leaders of certain
Hindu religious organisations cannot
and annual reports for their one-
person organisations for the past
two decades.
March: Public Protector Thuli
Madonsela wins the Global Integrity
Award, hosted jointly by the BBC, Al
Jazeera, CNN and NDTV. The SABC,
New Age, SACP, ANCYL, ANCWL,
and MK Veterans, denounce it as
a sinister Western plot by the CIA
to portray the Zuma government as
corrupt, incompetent, undemocratic,
secretive and anti-poor.
March: Logie Naidoo announces
he is working on his autobiography
(ghost written by Ashwin Desai)
and titled “My Experiments with
Skin Lighteners, and Other Stories”.
headlines about crime, graft, murder,
mayhem, rent-a-mob, JZ attends an
Australian Emigration seminar dis-
guised in a bhurka.
April: The EFF MPs awarded
honorary doctorates by the Grace of
the University of Zimbabwe. Red
overalls are replaced with graduation
gowns, according to the Honourable
Dr Malema.
The SABC, SACP, COSATU,
SADTU, ANCYL, ANCWL all deny
they are ventriloquists for JZ.
Dr Mike Sutcliffe denies he ac-
cepted the out of court settlement
(mediated by that bastion of integrity,
MEC Ravi Pillay) in his litigation
against Durban City Manager S’bu
Sithole, in order not to jeopardise his
lucrative consulting contract with old
comrade Local Government Minister
Pravin Gordhan (who does not give
jobs to pals).
May: The Maha Sabha announces
that Diwali (for those from
the east, west, north, south, or any
permutation thereof) will be cel-
ebrated on 25 December 2015. There
is immediate condemnation from the
Tamil Federation who vow to boycott
all Hindu businesses, and reveal that
the correct date is 24 December 2014
as the “south is always ahead of the
north and the Maha Sabha has no
-
ing to the Tamil Religion”.
The Hindu community declares
a fatwa on Ashwin Trikamjee. Bala
and Peru threaten to return to the air-
waves, and Aunty Rhumba becomes
suicidal. IS cleric warns Muslim busi-
nesses not to sell any Hindu products,
and stock in these stores are reduced
to dates and perfumes, and owners
June: The Indian community ac-
cords a special welcome to the new
Vice-Chancellor of UKZN. Divided
as ever (the sectionalism and faction-
alism matches that within the ANC),
Hindus debate whether he should
carry kavady or raise the jhunda,
garland. Muslims provide him with
free overnight accommodation in a
Zuma travels to China to receive
the Chairman Mao Democracy Award
for promoting freedom, peace and
non-violence by denying that danger-
ous insurgent the Dalai Lama a visa.
July: As the party’s electoral
fortunes plummet, the ANC caucus
medical exit. Zuma consults Indian
PM Narendra Modi, who recom-
mends celibacy, vegetarianism and
abstinence.
August: The SACP announces that
while it still adheres to Karl Marx’s
dictum that religion is the opium of
the masses, if God did exist then his
name will be Jacob Zuma. Hence,
the ANC-SACP-ANCYL-COSATU
alliance will rule SA until the Second
Coming.
September: EFF to establish its
own Institution of Higher Learning
(accredited with the University of
Zmbabwe) where innovative and
entrepreneurial courses would include
How to: Keep the President away
from Parliament; Turn the majority
into a minority; Simulate madness
and mayhem, and other allied intel-
lectual pursuits.
October: Cyril Ramaphosa, Jeff
Radebe and Zweli Mkhize (pretend-
ers to the throne) deny yet another
intelligence report they are planning
a coup against JZ and sign a declara-
tion ceding all rights to the throne,
and pledge loyalty to whoever HE
chooses, paving the way for Dudu-
zane Zuma (of the Gupta Academy)
to take over the reins.
November: Mac Maharaj announc-
es that as part of the ANC’s
strategy to honour Mandela’s legacy,
statues of Jacob Zuma will be erected
in the arrivals hall of all airports in
SA and Beijing, and this will be spon-
sored by the Guptas.
December: In an attempt to send an
unambiguous signal it was opposed
to malfeasance, the ANC government
announces Nkandla will be auctioned
to recover irregular state expendi-
ture. Guess who is the highest bidder
– Vivian Reddy, Thoshan Panday,
Santha Naidu, Ishwar Ramlutchman,
the Guptas, or Roy Moodley?
Professor Brij Maharaj is a geogra-
pher at the University of KwaZulu-
Natal. He writes in his personal
capacity.
And this is how it will all go down in 2015
COLIN THAKUR
DigiTalk