The Challenges of Youth Entrepreneurship from a Local Government Perspective in South Africa

This paper examines the challenges of youth entrepreneurship and aims to understand whether the local government sector in South Africa can act as a catalyst in consolidating youth entrepreneurship. The local government sector is essential in South Africa as it is mandated to grow and improve local infrastructure and community services and contribute towards economic development. Opening opportunities for young people in the entrepreneurship domain can help reduce unemployment. Through funding and training opportunities, the local government sector, a branch of government closer to the people, can play a significant role in fostering youth entrepreneurship. A qualitative research approach was employed where a literature review was untaken. Findings revealed that an increasing youth unemployment rate faced South Africa, negatively affecting the need for inclusive development. The paper found that local government can contribute towards reducing youth unemployment by implementing programs encouraging and capacitating youth entrepreneurship and prioritizing entrepreneurship education. However, it was also revealed that the local government sector is confronted with several challenges, such as corruption, wasteful expenditure, and a lack of skilled personnel. Unless these issues are addressed, it will be impossible for the sector to consolidate policies that support and encourage youth entrepreneurship. Keywords:   Entrepreneurship; Development; Inclusive; Support; Unemployment; Yout

THE EFFECT OF A COALITION GOVERNMENT ON SERVICE DELIVERY IN SOUTH AFRICAN MUNICIPALITIES

The South African local government sphere has faced many challenges of a failed coalition between leading political parties. This is not a desirable situation in South Africa; hence, more citizens depend on local government for civic services, as the local government is the closest sphere to the local communities. The failure of the formed collation for the quest to govern local municipalities in South Africa undermines the urgency of effective and sustainable public service delivery throughout the country. The South African local government has witnessed many services delivery protests due to poor public service delivery, erupting political parties’ coalition is the last thing needed in this field. The eruption of coalition between the political parties symbolises the battle for dirty political games that does not have the interest of the public in the agenda of these political parties. Politicians are voted into power by the public with the hope that they will put the public needs as priority. Unfortunately, politicians are more concerned about staying in power and are willing to do whatever it takes to maintain power, even if it negatively affects public service provision. The article aims to analyse the advantages and disadvantages of coalition government in service delivery and to determine what coalition government holds for the future of South African public services. The qualitative method will be adopted, using secondary sources and literature to meet the objectives of this paper

Funding Open Educational Resources in Higher Education: A South African Public Policy Perspective

The direct crediting of book allowances to student accounts was, among other reasons, underpinned by the belief that students would be able to substitute prescribed study material with online content. The article attempts to understand if the local open educational resources (OER) funding policy environment was prepared for this significant transformation. The paper applied a critical theory paradigm and a documentary research strategy to identify policy-level documents on OER funding in the South African higher education sector. Content analysis was then applied to review what they said about OER funding. These outcomes were then measured against the National Policy Development Framework 2020, which also dominated the study’s conceptual framework. The study’s significant findings were that the OER funding policy did not meet the policymaking principles of the framework, and this exposed Higher Education to a poorly funded OER environment. The study recommended hastening the finalization of OER policy and the flexible application of current policy terms to include OER as a fundable higher education cause