What I would do If I ran SA

[Dave A]

The second part of my "Quality education for all" program would focus on tertiary education. And top of my list would be a total overhaul of the National Skills Development Strategy.

The manadatory grant system would be scrapped.
SDL funds would go into a pool that will fund formal education for school leavers first, the goal being a 100% subsidy of direct education costs.
Any change left over would then be applied across other training priorities and would be % subsidies of direct costs.

But we should also consider adult education. I cringe every time I see barbaric hordes running amok in our streets. People who think that they can fix everything with violence. People who are intimidated and manipulated like puppets because of their insecurities and superstition which can be blamed on a lack of proper education and upbringing.

I appreciate my priority ordering might not satisfy this thought, but I suggest we first need to stop more people getting to this point before we start dealing with the folk who are already in this position.

The SETAs would be restructured into training systems driven categories such as:
Professions
Trades
Certificates
Other (for now - what is left after the above needs analysis).

I could ramble on for hours on reasons and drilling down into more detail on each part, but that represents the broad strokes. Ultimately my concern is we're collecting pretty much 1% of the nation's payroll and it is being applied incredibly inefficiently at the moment.

[tec0]

1. Ban minimum wages - let people offer what they want, the worker can accept or reject. Better to be earning R2,000 a month than starving with nothing.

2. Allow hiring and firing without all this CCMA cr#p! If you look at the fastest growing economies they have the easiest hire and fire legislation.

3. Boost taxes to schooling, hospitals and law enforcement. Put qualified financial people (CAs etc) in charge of the funds.

4. Tenders will be opened transparently, in public, and the cheapest tender which complies with ALL requirements is awarded it - open to challenge from cheaper tenderers.

5. Ban unions.

Therein you will find oppression, there really is no right or wrong here but there was a time where people worked without unions and or the CCMA and that hated health and safety. Those where the times where a mineral was measured by lives lost mining it. Things like “a man a mile” each mile another man died.

I understand that people hate unions and all the rest, and I agree that people “employees” abuse these systems. So rather get rid of the abusers and keep the systems. Health and safety is a healthy respect for life. Yes you get safety officers that think they are cops but rather fire them... Keep the system it is a good system especially if you do things within reasonable safety.

Thirdly minimum wages is a must. There are very healthy companies that abuse the systems. Rather create a business model where the business income and skill requirements are taken into consideration and allow for some tax benefits to help the owner pay their employees a fair income and still remain healthy and profitable. It is in everyone’s best interest to keep your business alive and healthy.

[Blurock]

What is our view on tertiary education? There already appears to be a higher demand than the institutions can cope with. Should the bar not be set a little higher and students selected by doing an entry exam as is customary in many parts of the world?

I believe that more emphasis should be placed on technical education and trades. There are too many students clambering for "management" courses and not enough in areas where more specialised skills are required. We need more doctors, engineers, accountants, teachers and nurses, but we also need millwrights, mechanics and people doing a proper trade such as plumbing and electricians.

How do we achieve these goals?

[Phil Cooper]

UK suddenly woke up to the above today.

Miliband has announced that if Labour comes back to power, they will spend one BILLION pounds re-starting apprenticeships and training centres.

He says the government was wrong is pushing for only University educated people, and the country also needs people with skills in their hands.

(He forgot to mention it was Tony Blair's government that closed them down)!

[Swapo]

My Fix For This FUBAR Mess

Institute a Constitution similar to the ORIGINAL AMERICAN and NEVER EVER EVER CHANGE IT.

Back the Rand with Gold and Silver and return to REAL MONEY.

Abolish Income Tax and Establish a Poll Tax. If you cannot pay it you must work it off growing food or building roads or some other public service etc.

Overhaul the Justice System to reflect Gods Justice System - an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. No you dope, it does not mean remove the eye. It is like accident insurance. An eye/hand/arm/leg has a stipulated value. If you permanently damage any part you must repay what the part is worth. Jail time is limited to what is required to repay your debt. Jail time is paid for by your labour and the excess is attributed to your debt. When it is paid you leave. If a prison does not grow enough food to feed the inmates they starve. No TV, no Cellphone, no conjugal visits. Just honest labour in order to repay what you stole at the rate of 3 or 5 to 1 depending on value. The smaller the value the higher the ratio. Reinstitute the Penalty of Death for Blood Crimes - Rape/Murder etc.

Devolve all National Power into the Provinces and remove the chains of "Big Government". Reduce government involvement with the citizenry to providing for the common defense. Uhm... Yep, thats about all. Institute a Federal system ala Switzerland. This will allow local issues and local wishes to be legalised without impacting the rest of the country.

Devolve Policing into the cities. If a city wants more cops they must raise the money from the citizens of that city by charging taxes limited to a maximum set amount.

Abolish VAT. Institute a sliding scale consumption tax at the Point of Sale to the end user on all non basic food items based on the value of the item. The more expensive luxury items get taxed more. The more you consume the more tax you pay.

Abolish all legal requirements on payrolls such as UIF, TAX, LEVIES and other expenses. It is bullshit. If a person does not provide for themselves - tough luck. It is not the employer or the states duty to provide for you.

Abolish all grants. If you cannot feed it do not breed it. Poll taxes can be levied and given to audited humanitarian organisations to provide aid to the completely useless indigent. The State is there to protect your rights not feed you.

Illegal immigrants will be jailed at hard labour for the same period they have been in the country illegally before being deported.

Get government OUT of education completely. Government is there to defend the nation and the rights of the people - nothing more, nothing less.

Reinstate auditable corporal punishment for boys and girls.

Institute free firearm ownership to any one who passes the required tests. Institute "No Backdown" and "Castle Doctrine" laws.

Abolish fuel taxes and levies. Abolish the SASOL subsidy.

Look at nationalising strategic industries such as Sasol, Iscor etc to provide advantage to local industry. Why should I be able to IMPORT steel cheaper than I can buy it at the gate at ISCOR?

Institute a Broken Window approach to law enforcement. Enforce EVERY little law to start engendering a culture of compliance.

Institute liveable minimum wages.

Institute completely free hire and fire laws.

Overhaul the "Capitalist" system and replace it with a free market system. No - Capitalism is NOT the same thing as a free market. Capitalism is the Marxistisation of the free market through lobby groups, consolidation of power and non competitive collusion. It is most certainly NOT a FREE MARKET economy. Abandoning a free market economy is what got the world into the current mess it is in. Let the market decide.

Abolish ALL non physical ownership and investment initiatives such as debt leverage, deriviatives, currency speculation etc. It is fake money and worse than a casino - for every winner there are 1000 losers.

Those are just a few thoughts...

[tec0]

Firstly don’t get me wrong I am all for the Old Testament when it comes to serious crimes.

However everything mentioned will not solve any problem I am sorry to say. I don’t mean to insult anyone but we are still on a small scale. See we can think of rules regulation adopt and or modify the constitution. All of that means absolutely nothing.

Practical solutions is to created homes, and generate work. Having a good income and a nice place to live will reduce crime and friction.

Secondly is practical education In the very old days Eskom use to take in anyone and train them from the ground up. It was long process but it worked well because those same people "all of them much older then most of us" Still work at Eskom and they know how to keep the plants running. (it works)

For a proper foundation you need to change and modify the bits that matter to the public. Security, health and safety and the ability to survive. Once these systems are there you can think about castrating people and so on...

First things first... You need to stability the rest will follow.

[Lynda]

Adrianh, I agree... in fact they should bring that in right now... when people go to hospital to have their child and it's their 2nd one they should be sterilised at the same time. Have thought this for years now.

[carryn-leigh]

The primary change would be to create an education system that actually educates our kids. I am a teaching assistant for first year biology at a well known university. I sit and dispair at what these kids come up with. The current education system promises to create better students, while creating so much pressure on the teaching staff with the admin and nonsense that they have to deal with on top of teaching. It really hasn't created that much of a difference in the positive direction. I was educated on the 'old' syllabus, but I went to university with kids who were on the 'new' syllabus. I don't feel like I missed out at all. I was often at the top of my class, so these 'improved' skills they are teaching learners today didn't really help much in the university field.

My main changes to the school system would be:
1. Educate teachers. I agree with some of the above posters who maintain that the teachers are clueless and don't understand their own subject. This would change dramatically. Teachers would be expected to go on 'refresher' courses maybe every 2 years to make sure they are up to date with the material they are teaching. Teachers who fail the test at the end of a course would be expected to repeat it, if they fail a second time, their position as a teacher would be terminated.
2. Make teaching a desireable job. Many well educated people (myself included) are not interested in teaching at a government school because the salaries are pitiful and one cannot live (decently) on such a salary. If teaching became a respectable job, more qualified people would be interested in educating the kids of our country. (See Finland as a good example of what to do).
3. At the same time, teachers who show high absenteeism must be fired. This is one of the biggest problem in our schools today. Kids sit in a classroom with no teacher. Not everyone is able to work their way through a maths textbook and figure it out on their own. Teachers need to be there to help them along.
4. Teachers must teach. Admin must be handled by admin staff.
5. Onto schools - schools should be streamlined, so that we have pure academic schools and technical schools. While there are technical schools out there, I don't think there are enough. Some people are not academically inclined, and their potential in other areas should be advanced. Kids who are pushed to do well academically, when they aren't that way inclined leads to a high failure rate and a lack of skilled workers in the job market.
6. Syllabus: Get rid of the joke that is Maths Literacy, and bring back Higher, Standard and Functional Grade maths. Maths would still be compulsory, but at least learners will have an intermediate level (Standard Grade) to choose from. Maths Literacy is the downfall of this country's education. Too many kids try the Core maths, and do badly, so they switch to Maths Lit, which teaches them how to count and not how to deal with the whole purpose of Maths, which is to encourage logical thinking. And God knows we need more people with logical thought in this country!
7. Again with syllabus, I would consult universities and find out what gaps first year learners have, and address these gaps in the syllabus. For example, in Biology, so many kids have no clue that they are animals. This needs to be brought back into the syllabus, and less focus put on whatever they are teaching kids nowadays.

I think I have dealt with most of the problems we have in our school system. Obviously it would cost a bit to implement, but in the long run, our future generations will thank us for it.

[cyppok]

Education is generally of 2 types,

one type of education is one that indoctrinates youth through routine and teach compliance via shutting down of thought and curiosity.

the other type of education is sociatal interplay on a social level and how the government pulls levers and organizes them in a system that it controls, adaptability and plasticity come into play and the critical element is out.

THE MOST IMPORTANT TYPE OF EDUCATION OVER AND ABOVE ANY AND ALL SCIENCE IS CRITICAL THINKING!!!

Critical thinking is the most important type of education one can gain. To do what one can with what one has under the circumstances he is in. To apply your mind to your environment and do your best to use every tool you have in your brainbox. You may not have the best tools but if you use them better than the other person you will be better off.

{Yes, math and science matters but critical thought is paramount}

Also education won't fix the country only makes people smart enough to recognize the road your traveling and doesn't push impetus upon them to change circumstances.

[tec0]

I think you need a short term goal and a long term goal.

Short term will include:

Stage (1)
(1) Getting the money that was stolen back, (2) Get the police force up to standard, (3) Get hospitals up to standard, (4) Get the municipal services up to standard, (5)Get Schools up to standard (6) Get rid of unfair bylaws. This will realistically take about five years to do.

Stage(2)
(1) Introduce proper housing (we all saw that building that was done in two weeks), (2) Invest moneys in Agriculture, Raw material processing, fabrication of goods Fabrication of electronic goods, (3) Introduce cost effective alternative power for home use. (4) Introduce Home schooling systems. This will realistically take about seven years to do.

Stage(3)
(1) Restoring of land that was once used for mining, (2)Introduce military training for everyone older than 18 for no less than 3 years (include one year in adding Hospitals , One year adding Police service and One year adding Military service. (3) Introducing systems for purification plants and pipelines to feed water from the ocean to the inland to supplement water supplies to aid agriculture. This will take no less than seven to ten years to accomplish

Long term will include:

Stage(1)
(1) Introduction of new ruling system (Each province will have an Overseer that will report to the general public on the implementation and allocation of monies. Each will make sure that ALL is too satisfactory. If the Overseer fails in her/his duties they will be removed by public vote and a new Overseer will be introduced.) This will take about ten to fifteen years.

(2) Population control. (I have no idea how this will be done. But criminals (any criminal) will be subject to castration. This will include all form of crime such as not paying your tax. ) This will take about ten to fifteen years.

[cyppok]

tec0 I mentioned the provincial division of revenue and other powers as per Canada. Won't happen due to political dominance.

Any and all investments you promote won't happen due to theft, incompetence, sovereign bonds spiking due to nationalization rumors for the forex providers (miners), and simply because a lot of them cannot occur due to cross resources not being available. (excess, water, energy, capital... a lot of agri productivity is related to not just land , fertilizer, water, climate, labor, and capital in the form of machinery and working capital but also other efficiencies, like transportation to value added points bakeries, ports, etc... that is breaking down via infrastructure)

The good news. Is that once you have total collapse and civil war the survivors will get to start anew and build it almost from scratch. Yes, underneath it all I am an optimist.

Primarily three things if the government does now would change the course.
1) institution of law and order, equal protection under the law
2) unwavering fixed policy to streamline and make business administration consistent ergo tax rates and whatever you have is frozen so that people get used to it via forms and whatnot instead of constant addons and changes that add business burden (for local/foreign investors.)
3) responsibility through the chain of command and accountability, you do something crappy it gets show to public you get fired it gets fixed

[Blurock]

I would re-open the prison on Robben Island and all put the politicians and government officials that are stealing from us, the people, there. Forever!

The prison may not be big enough, so I will send the overflow to Reunion with a couple of goats, so they could survive on their own and enjoy the fresh air.

The real big thieves, the ones who are building houses and palaces with taxpayers money, will be sent to Antarctica where they can assist in building a new base for our researchers.

[tec0]

The good news. Is that once you have total collapse and civil war the survivors will get to start anew and build it almost from scratch.

So have seen war have you? You saw the fear in the eyes of innocent children that can only stare and pray that total lawlessness doesn’t take over. See they are normally the very first people to feel the wrath of a corrupt soul. Is the rest of Africa not a clear enough example for you? There is no protection for them. War allows for anything including violence against women and children.

You say these words so easily as if you have the balls to step up when the situation comes calling. It is one thing to deem terrorist actions as terrorists actions like the strikers attacking people.

It is something else when you see war as a solution.

I am done with this thread.

[cyppok]

So have seen war have you? You saw the fear in the eyes of innocent children that can only stare and pray that total lawlessness doesn’t take over. See they are normally the very first people to feel the wrath of a corrupt soul. Is the rest of Africa not a clear enough example for you? There is no protection for them. War allows for anything including violence against women and children.

You say these words so easily as if you have the balls to step up when the situation comes calling. It is one thing to deem terrorist actions as terrorists actions like the strikers attacking people.

It is something else when you see war as a solution.

I am done with this thread.

I say it easily because I observe from AFAR. No didn't see it up close, don't plan to either.

Strikers attacking people is civil disturbance and regular break-down of law and order not enforced by the local government.

I said it may come to it, if you have complete break down in enforcement you have roaming bands of people doing whatever they wish without impunity. That is kind of the definition of a civil war. If you get a few hundred thousand people doing it in various parts of the country. Striking and running around destroying sht en masse is very different things. A strike is not a riot.

[Dave A]

Striking and running around destroying sht en masse is very different things. A strike is not a riot.

Absolutely.

And it least it seems that our government is starting to wake up to that not-so-subtle difference too.

Of course, realising it is one thing - solving the problem is the real challenge