Opinion and Analysis

Educational technology has huge potential: a response to Nikki Stein

Last week Nikki Stein from SECTION27 expressed reservations about the piloting of paperless classrooms at seven township schools in Gauteng. MEC for Education in the province, Panyaza Lesufi, responds here.

Panyaza Lesufi

Opinion | 27 January 2015

Where the wealthiest ‘wine, dine, bribe and bully’

The annual World Economic Forum (WEF) extravaganza got underway last week as 700 private jets whizzed into the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos. This is a gathering where the heads of immensely rich corporations wine, dine, bribe and bully various power brokers and wannabe tycoons to do their bidding and to adopt policies that suit the corporate world.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 26 January 2015

City to improve toilet cleaning facility

This is a response by Councillor Ernest Sonnenberg, Mayoral Committee Member for Utility Services, to GroundUp's article "Is this the Dirtiest Job in Cape Town?" published on 21 January.

Ernest Sonnenberg

Opinion | 23 January 2015

Constitutional rights apply to sex workers too

A year ago, some boys in my street came home late at night with a sex worker. They refused to pay her.

Abigail McDougall

Opinion | 22 January 2015

Classrooms of the future?

The air is thick with the excitement of the first week of school. Stories of bright-eyed learners whose parents are dropping them off for the start of their school careers, donning their too-big uniforms and carrying backpacks almost the size of the learners themselves, are all over newspapers, radio stations, televisions and social media.

Nikki Stein

Opinion | 21 January 2015

What Africa’s premier soccer tournament means to Equatorial Guinea

The brutal kleptocracy of Equatorial Guinea hopes to gain a measure of international acceptance by hosting the African Cup of Nations (Afcon) soccer spectacle that kicked off this weekend, writes Terry Bell. The oil and gas wealth generated by this “Kuwait of Africa” provides the economic wherewithal for the ruling elite to buy favours while the bulk of the population wallows in repressive poverty. Bell was the only foreign journalist to cover the independence of Equatorial Guinea more than 46 years ago.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 19 January 2015

Why Cape Town should not name a street after FW De Klerk

Once again, there is a furore about plans to name a major Cape Town street after former apartheid president FW de Klerk. As well there should be, although there is considerable support for the proposal.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 19 January 2015

Charlie Hebdo: Let’s not fall into the politically correct trap

Charlie Hebdo journalist Laurent Leger is no stranger to South African newspaper readers. Over the last ten years or so, as a freelancer, Laurent has written several reports for South African newspapers on the French connection in the arms deal, and also on failed attempts to find the killers of ANC Paris representative Dulcie September.

Alide Dasnois

Opinion | 13 January 2015

Cartoons and the Prophet Muhammad

The question of whether Prophet Muhammad can be depicted in Islam is something that perhaps most Muslims have failed to explain. With every cartoon or drawing, most people wonder why Muslims are in such an uproar – and admittedly, in some cases in a manner that is frankly unbefitting of the Prophet himself.

A’Eysha Kassiem

Opinion | 13 January 2015