At the end of grade nine South African students are expected to decide which subjects they would like to continue with for the rest of high school. One of the important decisions they make is whether or not they will continue with maths, or take maths literacy. As five students explain, the decision is tough, affects their future, and is not always made freely and based on their true ability and interests.
Sarita Pillay
Feature | 9 October 2015
In King Leopold’s Ghost, the historian Adam Hochschild uncovers the horrors committed in the Belgian Congo in the years before and after 1900. It is a history of slavery, murder and mutilation – anyone who’s seen the pictures of piles of cut-off hands cannot but be horrified by it.
Marcus Low
Opinion | 9 October 2015
A group of nine miners and Vredendal community members who were charged with public violence after participating in a demonstration outside the Australian-owned Tormin mine on the west coast, made a brief appearance in court on Thursday. Meanwhile, on Friday a group of about 60 mine-workers and members of the west coast community where the Tormin Mineral Sand mine operates came to Cape Town to picket outside the High Court.
Barbara Maregele and Bernard Chiguvare
News | 9 October 2015
Fashions by local designers were on display at the Khayelitsha Fashion Show, Chillers Place, Madayi Crescent, Khayelitsha.
Photos by Masixole Feni.
News | 8 October 2015
On Monday, panicked applicants who had not yet received their Zimbabwean Special Dispensation Permit (ZSP) started queuing outside the ABSA building in central Cape Town for help.
Tariro Washinyira
News | 8 October 2015
At least two thousand workers from all sectors of the economy in the Western Cape marched to parliament today to hand over a memorandum of demands.
Bernard Chiguvare
News | 7 October 2015
For millions of South Africans, the monthly social grants -- mostly pensions and child support -- are the difference between survival and starvation.
GroundUp Staff
News | 7 October 2015
Every month, money is deducted from the accounts of hundreds of beneficiaries of social grants without their permission. The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) is working to get the money refunded. But according to the Black Sash, the system Sassa has set up does not work.
GroundUp Staff
Feature | 7 October 2015
The South African government’s massive social security payment system is managed by a subsidiary of Net1, a company listed on stock exchanges in the United States and Johannesburg.
GroundUp Staff
Feature | 7 October 2015
Some social grant beneficiaries are so deeply in debt that much of each month’s grant goes to paying back a loan.
GroundUp Staff
Feature | 7 October 2015
It’s 6:30am on a cold Wednesday morning and about 50 people, mostly women with babies, are already queuing outside the South African Social Security Agency office in the Delft library to apply for their child support grants.
GroundUp Staff
Feature | 7 October 2015
In the case against Hangberg resident, Santonio Jonkers, state witness David Nortje told the court on Tuesday that he personally issued Jonkers with a notice of eviction in September 2011.
Barbara Maregele
News | 7 October 2015
“Crime is touching me; it’s eating me,” said Patricia May, standing on a stretch of vacant land between Extension 9 and Transit Camp, two neighbourhoods in the larger Grahamstown township.
Hancu Louw
News | 7 October 2015
Mhlanguli George, a young Nyanga-based theatre producer and director, has created Theatre in the Backyard, which aims to offer a very different theatre experience from the mainstream.
Christopher Clark
News | 6 October 2015
In May, the Democratic Alliance Student Alliance (DASO) won SRC elections at the University of Fort Hare. The university has been a stronghold of ANC-aligned organisations. We spoke to student leaders to find out what changed.
Sibusiso Tshabalala
Analysis | 6 October 2015
Over the past few years, we have seen an explosion of arguments for and against gay rights in Africa. Those in favour of gay rights point out that they can help to protect sexual minorities by making discrimination illegal, in the process making societies more equitable. Those opposed to gay rights allege that homosexuality only arrived with Europeans, that gay rights are a threat to the African nation, and a threat to the heterosexual family.
Andrew Tucker
Opinion | 6 October 2015