February 27, 2013.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Chantelle Kotze.

Making headlines:

The Department of Basic Education aims to pilot a school biometrics system to enforce teacher accountability.

A Kenyan city fears a violence rerun ahead of tight presidential elections.

And, South Africa’s gross domestic product growth is expected to remain flat in 2013.

 

The Department of Basic Education (or DBE) aims to pilot a biometrics system within public schools to assess its viability and effectiveness in enforcing teacher accountability in South Africa.

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said the Department noted with great concern the calls by various role-players, including parents, who have observed the trend in teachers’ absenteeism and lack of accountability.

Motshekga said the system would “relieve” the burden of the school principals manually clocking teachers in, by replacing the manual attendance registers currently used by every school.

The DBE said measures such as effective and reliable staff attendance registers, learners’ class attendance registers, and the monitoring of the use of accountability instruments, were implemented, but the department was exploring various other mechanisms to monitor staff attendance.

 

Some businesses in Kisumu, Kenya's third-largest city, have reduced stock or closed ahead of Monday's presidential elections for fear of a repeat of the tribal violence that killed more than 1 200 people at the last such vote five years ago.

The ethnic tensions that led to violence in 2007 still linger. And, as in the past, tribal loyalties will trump policies for many of Kenya's 14-million eligible voters.

In a worrying sign, leaflets have been scattered in Kisumu calling for the eviction of Kikuyu and Kalenjin tribes, which have formed an alliance against Prime Minister Raila Odinga, of the Luo tribe, who is seeking the presidency. Odinga is running in a neck-and-neck battle with Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, a Kikuyu who backed President Mwai Kibaki in 2007. The two are well ahead of the other six hopefuls, according to opinion polls.

After the last election crisis, Kenya's growth tumbled to 1.7% in 2008 from 7.1% in 2007. However, this time round, none of the main candidates offers a vision that would change the course of Kenya's broadly open economy, which analysts say means that growth, now running at almost 5% is not threatened by the result itself.

 

The latest Statistics South Africa quarterly GDP report released on Tuesday has revealed that South Africa is likely to maintain its soft gross domestic product growth over the next year. This is despite growth seen in the manufacturing; agriculture, forestry and fishing; and finance, real estate and business services sectors, besides others, which drove the higher-than-expected quarterly and yearly economic growth.

The Stats SA quarterly GDP report showed that the country’s GDP expanded by 2.5% in 2012, down from the 3.5% reported in the prior year, while the fourth-quarter gained traction with an annualised growth rate of 2.1%.

Banking group Nedbank said that the “steadier, although bland” full-year GDP growth was mainly owing to higher production by the agriculture and manufacturing sectors, as mining production slumped amid continued wildcat strikes into the final quarter.

 

Also making headlines:

South Africa launches a zero emission electric vehicle pilot programme.

Egypt’s President Mohamed Mursi’s opponents threaten to boycott the Egyptian parliamentary elections.

And, Tunisian police launch a manhunt for the killer of opposition leader Chokri Belaid.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.