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Daily podcast – January 15, 2015

Daily podcast – January 15, 2015

15th January 2015

By: Sane Dhlamini
Creamer Media Senior Contributing Editor and Researcher

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January 15, 2015.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.
Making headlines: 


Deputy Minister in the Presidency Buti Manamela released the draft National Youth Policy 2015 to 2020 for public comment and launched the public consultation process.

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Chad says it is ready to actively help Cameroon fight Boko Haram militants.

And, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa officially launched government’s paperless education system pilot project.

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The South African government hopes to provide the nation’s youth with a “hand up” to meaningfully participate in society and the economy, as consultations for the updated National Youth Policy (or NYP) 2015 to 2020 get under way.

Deputy Minister responsible for planning, monitoring and evaluation in the Presidency Buti Manamela told media that the government’s aim was to revamp the previous five-year policy, which lapsed last year, into a youth development programme that is able to catalyse the potential of the country’s youth.

Speaking at the release of the draft five-year policy in Pretoria, he explained that the improved policy had been adjusted to align youth programmes, initiatives and guidelines with the current challenges faced by the youth.

The draft of the NYP would be out for comment until February 28, while the finalised policy was expected to be published in March.   

Led by Manamela, the youth desk in the Department of Monitoring and Evaluation and the National Youth Development Agency  – which was charged with implementing the prior NYP – implementation of the new policy is aimed at correcting the “mistakes” made in the former policy, which failed to take into account limited resources, legislative mandate and a lack of authority to drive the plan.

The new NYP would build on the successes of previous policies, further articulate the youth-specific proposals of the National Development Plan, strengthen existing interventions, shed failed initiatives and introduce new ones, closing gaps and “stubborn challenges” that needed new approaches.

Chad says it is ready to actively help Cameroon fight Boko Haram militants attacking it from Nigeria. It also called on other countries in the region to translate pledges of support into concrete action.

The Central African country’s offer came days after an appeal by Cameroon President Paul Biya for international military help to fight the Islamist militant group that has seized swathes of northern Nigeria and is threatening neighbours who share borders with the north-eastern zones occupied by Boko Haram.

Cameroon's north is now regularly attacked by the Islamists, who highlighted their regional threat this month by seizing a military base in Nigeria which was meant to be used by a joint force from Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon to fight them.

Chad government spokesperson Hassan Sylla Bakari said its government expresses solidarity with Cameroon and is ready to provide active support in the response of its armed forces against the criminals and terrorists of Boko Haram.

 


Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa officially launched government’s paperless education system pilot project, ‘The Big Switch On’, at the Boitumelong Secondary School, in Tembisa, in Gauteng.

He told learners and educators who had returned for their first school day of the academic year that the initiative demonstrates an appreciation by government of the importance of information technology in the South African education system.

The R17-billion system would be rolled out to all township and rural schools in Gauteng by the end of the 2017/18 financial year. It would provide learners and educators with access to learning material through the use of information and communications technologies (or ICTs), such as tablets.

Township schools that had 100% Matric pass rates in the 2014 exams would be the first to benefit from the project, a news agency reported.

Flanked by Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi and Gauteng Premier David Makhura, Ramaphosa said education was at the core of government's strategy to improve the lives of South Africans and was an instrument for achieving social cohesion and national unity.

Ramaphosa said government had adopted a national e-skills plan in response to a World Economic Forum report that had dropped South Africa's global “e-readiness” ranking from 47th place in 2007 to 70th in 2013.

He also said that ‘The Big Switch On’ project by the Gauteng Department of Education is in line with this plan and the need to improve the quality of education in the country.

 


Also making headlines:

Gauteng Premier David Makhura and his executive council will present the e-toll review panel's final report to the media on Thursday, his office said.

The number of South Africans benefiting from social grants has more than doubled over the last ten years, from 12.7% to 30.2% of the population, National Treasury revealed on Wednesday.

All three countries hit hardest by the Ebola epidemic have recorded their lowest weekly number of new cases for months, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, as the global death toll reached 8 429 out of 21 296 cases reported so far.

And, Tanzania has banned witch doctors in a bid to curb a rising wave of attacks and murders of albinos whose body parts are prized for witchcraft after a four-year-old albino girl was kidnapped from her home by an armed gang.


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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.

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