Language rights in education in South Africa

Realisation of multilingual education as a right has remained a controversial issue in South Africa.  This is despite the Constitutional and legislative frameworks that support multilingual education. While the controversy undermines linguistic diversity in educational institutions in general, as suggested by the exclusion of African languages in the curriculum in some primary schools, it is in the curriculum of most institutions of higher learning where this linguistic diversity is undermined. Despite this bleak picture, some studies report promising trends regarding attempts at promoting multilingual education in some of these institutions. The article concludes by encouraging the universities to interrogate the language ideologies that underlie the language policies and implementation of the policies in the institutions of higher learning, and how these promote or infringe the language rights of students

Contributions to sanitation in KwaZulu/Natal

Contributions to sanitation in KwaZulu/Nata

The Effects of Chemical and Mechanical Control of Woody Plants on Resprouting and Seedling Production in Communal Rangelands

In many African countries, communal rangelands are threatened by woody plant encroachment. We sought to explore potential solutions for communal ranchers that would be cost-effective. We conducted two field experiments to determine (1) the effects of various tree removal treatments (10%, 20%, 50%, 75% and 100%), and herbicide application on resprouting ability and vigour of several woody plant species; and (2) the effectiveness of Tree Poppers® (a weed wrench) as a low-cost mechanical control tool to physically uproot seedlings and saplings of woody species. In the first experiment, we examined 12 plant species from 20 plots (30 m x 30 m) each subjected to tree removal, followed by herbicide application on half of the stumps for each plot. In the second experiment, eight dominant tree species were grouped into three height classes (0-49 cm, 50-99 cm, 100-150 cm) of ten seedlings and saplings per species per height class. All the tree species in this study resprouted six months after cutting. Herbicide application significantly reduced the resprouting ability of Dichrostachys cinerea (L.) Wight & Arn, Ehretia rigida (Thunb.) Druce, Vachellia robusta (Burch.) Kyalangalilwa & Boatwright and Ziziphus mucronata Willd. Tree removal positively influenced the resprouting ability and vigour of only Euclea crispa (Thunb.) Gürke. The diameter of stumps was an important factor in determining resprouting ability, with shoot production decreasing with increasing stump diameter. We found no significant differences in the number of seedlings and saplings uprooted by Tree Poppers® among the different size classes. There were significant differences in the number of juveniles uprooted using a weed wrench with only a few individuals of Vachellia species uprooted. Woody plants are more likely to resprout and survive as juveniles than as adults after cutting. Communal ranchers may mechanically control shallow-rooted tree seedlings with a weed wrench but not deep-rooted ones, such as Vachellia species

Dicarbon­yl(η5-cyclo­penta­dien­yl)[2-(phenyl­sulfan­yl)eth­yl]iron(II)

The title compound, [Fe(C5H5)(C8H9S)(CO)2], is a three-legged piano-stool iron(II) complex that is characterized by a thio­ethyl-linked phenyl ring and a cyclo­penta­dienyl moiety that occupies the apical coordination site. The two aromatic rings are essentially planar with the same maximum deviation of 0.009 Å. The mean planes of the phenyl and cyclo­penta­dienyl rings bis­ect at an acute angle of 50.08°

COVID deaths in South Africa: 99 days since South Africa’s first death

Background. Understanding the pattern of deaths from COVID-19 in South Africa (SA) is critical to identifying individuals at high risk of dying from the disease. The Minister of Health set up a daily reporting mechanism to obtain timeous details of COVID-19 deaths from the provinces to track mortality patterns.Objectives. To provide an epidemiological analysis of the first COVID-19 deaths in SA.Methods. Provincial deaths data from 28 March to 3 July 2020 were cleaned, information on comorbidities was standardised, and data were aggregated into a single data set. Analysis was performed by age, sex, province, date of death and comorbidities.Results. SA reported 3 088 deaths from COVID-19, i.e. an age-standardised death rate of 64.5 (95% confidence interval (CI) 62.3 - 66.8) deaths per million population. Most deaths occurred in Western Cape (65.5%) followed by Eastern Cape (16.8%) and Gauteng (11.3%). The median age of death was 61 years (interquartile range 52 - 71). Males had a 1.5 times higher death rate compared with females. Individuals with two or more comorbidities accounted for 58.6% (95% CI 56.6 - 60.5) of deaths. Hypertension and diabetes were the most common comorbidities reported, and HIV and tuberculosis were more common in individuals aged <50 years.Conclusions. Data collection for COVID-19 deaths in provinces must be standardised. Even though the data had limitations, these findings can be used by the SA government to manage the pandemic and identify individuals who are at high risk of dying from COVID-19

Social representations and the politics of participation

Recent work has called for the integration of different perspectives into the field of political psychology (Haste, 2012). This chapter suggests that one possible direction that such efforts can take is studying the role that social representations theory (SRT) can play in understanding political participation and social change. Social representations are systems of common-sense knowledge and social practice; they provide the lens through which to view and create social and political realities, mediate people's relations with these sociopolitical worlds and defend cultural and political identities. Social representations are therefore key for conceptualising participation as the activity that locates individuals and social groups in their sociopolitical world. Political participation is generally seen as conditional to membership of sociopolitical groups and therefore is often linked to citizenship. To be a citizen of a society or a member of any social group one has to participate as such. Often political participation is defined as the ability to communicate one's views to the political elite or to the political establishment (Uhlaner, 2001), or simply explicit involvement in politics and electoral processes (Milbrath, 1965). However, following scholars on ideology (Eagleton, 1991; Thompson, 1990) and social knowledge (Jovchelovitch, 2007), we extend our understanding of political participation to all social relations and also develop a more agentic model where individuals and groups construct, develop and resist their own views, ideas and beliefs. We thus adopt a broader approach to participation in comparison to other political-psychological approaches, such as personality approaches (e.g. Mondak and Halperin, 2008) and cognitive approaches or, more recently, neuropsychological approaches (Hatemi and McDermott, 2012). We move away from a focus on the individual's political behaviour and its antecedents and outline an approach that focuses on the interaction between psychological and political phenomena (Deutsch and Kinnvall, 2002) through examining the politics of social knowledge

Broadly neutralizing antibody specificities detected in the genital tract of HIV-1 infected women.

CAPRISA, 2016.Abstract available in PDF file.

Structure of an N276-dependent HIV-1 neutralizing antibody targeting a rare V5 glycan hole adjacent to the CD4 binding site.

CAPRISA, 2016.Abstract available in pdf

CD8+ T cell breadth and ex vivo virus inhibition capacity distinguish between viremic controllers with and without protective HLA class I alleles.

CAPRISA, 2016.Abstract available in PDF file