One precarious day almost exactly a year ago, we were expecting Cyril Ramaphosa to resign over the Phala Phala scandal at any moment.

John Hlatywayo, who has died at 96, was a great painter, sculptor and mentor. However he is woefully neglected in the art history of Zimbabwe and southern Africa.

The war that has erupted in Israel and Palestine since 7 October has caught many of us off guard with the ferocity with which both sides are trying to destroy each other and its utter disregard for civilian lives. South African news coverage of Israel and Hamas highlights how nothing about the conflict is straightforward and what a difficult line we need to tread if we are to work for peace.

Seahorses are considered fabled creatures by many; something that only exists in old mythical tales of the ocean. But these curious animals really exist – and they’re not the only members of the Syngnathidae family of fishes. Other syngnathids are pipefish, pygmy pipehorses and seadragons, and all are enchanting.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has been navigating turbulent waters for the past year but always seems to come through in the clear. Lately, he has dodged past the rugged rocks of Phala Phala and narrowly missed the cataclysmic vortex of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

How much significance should we read into Ace Magashule’s expulsion from the ANC, and will it have ripple effects on coalition possibilities for the 2024 elections? A look at June’s news coverage of the ruling party raises these questions, and reminds us of the deep moral gutter South African politics has descended into.

What constitutes effective training to ensure research supervisors are well equipped to work with doctoral students? Sioux McKenna and Puleng Motshoane share advice based on their research in South Africa.

In May 2022, the government in Ghana introduced a deeply unpopular tax on mobile money transactions, known as the e-levy. When it was introduced, the levy was structured as a 1.5% charge on all electronic and mobile money transactions over 100 cedis per day.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a shock to higher education systems everywhere. But while some changes, like moving lectures online, were relatively easy to make, assessment posed a much bigger challenge. Assessment can take many forms, from essays to exams to experiments and more.

If there was one person in South Africa all eyes were watching in 2022, it was Cyril Ramaphosa. His vertiginous swing in fortunes from almost resigning at the beginning of December to winning a second term as ANC president less than three weeks later left many of us with our hearts in our mouths.

Keeping track of the world’s wildlife populations is fundamental to conservation efforts in the face of the continued deterioration of global biodiversity.

More than Nollywood films, Afrobeats is arguably Nigeria’s strongest cultural export since the turn of the millennium. It is a hugely dynamic music category that incorporates a range of moods, languages, styles, and existing genres. To understand its impact, a cultural connoisseur has equated good Afrobeats music with well-made, smoky Nigerian party jollof rice!

Renowned African musician, songwriter and storyteller Latozi “Madosini” Mphahleni passed away late in 2022. The cultural and indigenous music activist, who laughed as often as she played, was loved by everyone she met. She has left behind a rich legacy of Xhosa music, heritage and history. She also taught and nurtured a new generation of bow players, reinvigorating an art that was dying.

Storytelling and science may, at first glance, seem like strange bedfellows. Scientists usually share their research through academic journals and books or at academic conferences.

South Africa is famous for its amazingly rich and diverse fossil record. The country’s rocks document more than 3.5 billion years of life on Earth: ancient forms of bacterial life, the emergence of life onto land, the evolution of seed-producing plants, reptiles, dinosaurs and mammals – and humanity.

South Africa’s population is urbanising at a rapid pace. The sheer rate of change poses challenges to planning for sustainable and liveable cities.

Many universities expend vast sums of money to improve their place on the rankings. And they make strategic decisions that favour rankings placement over transformation.

Drug-resistant infections caused by the misuse of antibiotic treatments killed over 1.2 million people worldwide in 2019. Without global action, this silent pandemic is projected to lead to 10 million deaths every year by 2050. People living in low-to-middle-income countries with limited access to new and effective antibiotics will be most affected.

The police-catch-punish approach neglects to address plagiarists’ misunderstanding of what higher education is all about, says Sioux McKenna.

Durban theatre company, Empatheatre, performed its play ‘Lalela Ulwandle’ at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh on 14 November. The intention of the cast and crew was to place an ‘acupuncture point’ within COP27 decision-making and spark deeper consideration of grassroots coastal realities of the climate crisis.

No matter the circumstances and challenges, informal traders were able to parlay the Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant into supporting and even in some cases, growing their businesses, write Senzelwe Mthembu, Sophie Plagerson, Laura Alfers, Mike Rogan and Lauren Graham.

Ghana’s introduction of a a 1.5% tax on mobile money transactions in May 2022 has been watched closely by policymakers across Africa. The proponents of the electronic transaction levy (e-levy) argue that taxes on mobile money — commonly referred to in Ghana as MoMo — present an opportunity for cash-strapped governments to raise funds in the complex post-pandemic context.

In an ambitious closing plenary of the 24th annual International Education Association of South Africa (IEASA) conference entitled ‘Around the globe in 60 minutes’, leaders from eight member associations of the Network of International Education Associations (NIEA) reflected on how the current global, regional and national geopolitical and economic contexts were impacting on higher education and the internationalisation of higher education.

The draft university policy is not about the public sector at all. Instead it sets out the future designations that will be available in the private higher education sector. It attends to the demand by private institutions that they too should be able to call themselves ‘universities’.

Proctoring software monitors a student’s computer or phone while they write exams. These programs have been around for some time but became ubiquitous during online learning in the pandemic.

One of the sources of social discontent in post-apartheid South Africa is the legacy of white racism. This toxic legacy is evident in racialised poverty and inequality.

Africa has great potential for drug discovery. The continent has natural resources, indigenous knowledge and human capacity. And it has the need: it bears more than 20% of the global disease burden. There are many internationally recognised African scientists undertaking cutting-edge research. But a lack of resources makes it difficult to conduct world-class science. A team of African biochemists, cell biologists and bioinformaticians shares some thoughts on what it would take to establish an Africa-wide drug discovery ecosystem. The authors are the key members of the COVIDRUG-AFRICA Consortium – the consortium for rapid COVID-19 drug development in Africa.

The UK government’s announcement of a new work visa option aimed at attracting top graduates has elicited some backlash because the list of eligible institutions features no universities from Africa, Latin America or South Asia. The Conversation Africa’s Nontobeko Mtshali asked Orla Quinlan, Director of Internationalisation at Rhodes University in South Africa, to share her thoughts on the implications such visa programmes have for international integration and intercultural efforts in higher education.

"Eskom” must be one of the most hated names in South Africa, a reputation that has only been entrenched after another run of load-shedding in May and indications of more to come as winter deepens.

It is mandatory for each South African institution to develop its own policy and plan on internationalisation two years after the Policy Framework for Internationalisation of Higher Education in South Africa was published on 6 November 2020, and at a time when international student numbers are decreasing.

When South African writer Antjie Krog was just 17, she wrote a poem for her school magazine which was shocking enough to upset Kroonstad High’s parents. The furore caught the attention of the Sunday newspapers, who descended on the town in the Free State province.

If there is one musician as commonly associated as Fela Anikulapo-Kuti with the West African musical movements Afrobeat and Afrobeats (never mind Afro-Blues and Afro-Soul), this is the preserve of Orlando Julius Ekemode. Given Fela’s immense stature it would seem impossible to speak of another musician from whom he gained musical direction. Yet, one must, in the case of his fellow multi-instrumentalist Orlando Julius.

Global maize production is worth billions of dollars annually and is key to global food security because it’s a staple food for billions of people. Most maize production relies on natural rainfall, making it vulnerable to changing rainfall patterns.

The Shona and the Ndebele are Zimbabwe’s two most dominant ethnic groups. Explaining the ever-present tension between them, historian Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni points to the abuse of the post-colonial state by the ruling Shona-dominated government “in its drive to destroy Ndebele particularism”. He explains, “This sets in motion the current Matabeleland politics of alienation, resentment and grievance.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa has had a busy month, and the list of things that have occupied his mind includes much more than high-profile matters like ending the National State of Disaster.

Another Grammy Awards season and there is a growing list of African nominees. For African music enthusiasts, it is heartwarming that recognition is being accorded to practitioners in the Afrobeats space.

South Africa’s coalition negotiations after the November 2021 election were full of unexpected plot twists. November’s news reporting reveals clear, almost cartoonish characterisations of our largest three parties emerging from a backdrop of extremely complex negotiations and a soap-opera-worthy web of love-hate relationships.

The word corruption has its roots in the Latin adjective corruptus which refers to something that is spoiled, corrupted or perverted. In South Africa, evidence of the perversion of public funds abounds. In his 2021 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement the country’s finance minister Enoch Godongwana warned that rampant corruption was a persistent issue draining public finances.

One of the world’s most spectacular marine migrations is the KwaZulu-Natal sardine run. The so-called “greatest shoal on Earth” takes place during the southern hemisphere’s winter. It involves the movement of tens to hundreds of millions of sardines from the warm-temperate waters of South Africa’s south coast to the subtropical waters of the east coast, over a thousand kilometres away.

South Africa’s Department of Higher Education and Training released a policy framework in 2020 to enhance the sector’s effort towards internationalisation. The Conversation’s Nontobeko Mtshali asked Orla Quinlan to share her insights.

The uptake of educational technology in South Africa’s higher education sector has been highly uneven and very slow. Before the pandemic, most courses offered in South African universities had some form of Learning Management System presence. Students could access course guides and readings, upload their assignments, and possibly communicate with their lecturer and peers via forums. But beyond that, many academics seemed to resist making use of the technology, even though it could allow for greater engagement and interactive learning.

The informal sector makes significant contributions to the national economies of most global South countries. In South Africa it constitutes 15% to 30% of all employment.

The story of democratic South Africa and its approach to human rights in the rest of the world is a tale of woe. For two-and-a-half decades, its foreign policy mostly failed to defend internationally – and quite often contradicted – the human rights principles contained in its constitution.

Being in nature has benefits for people, as studies have shown. There’s ample evidence that experiences of nature have positive physical and psychological outcomes. But these insights have largely come from the Global North. There’s very little research on how urban communities in the Global South experience or view urban nature.

The drug whoonga has plagued South African communities for at least a decade, yet only gained significant public attention when it appeared more visibly in the inner-city and surrounding suburbs of Durban, the major city in the country’s KwaZulu-Natal province.

Public procurement is the single largest corruption risk, particularly in developing countries. Transparency International estimates that governments in low- and middle-income countries spend about 50% of public funds buying goods and services from the private sector. This compares with just 30% in high-income countries.

The High Court in Durban, the port city in KwaZulu-Natal on the east coast of South Africa, has granted an interdict against a mosque, stopping its call to prayer (the athaan or adhan) because it can be heard from a neighbour’s house across the street.

Many universities around the world pay academics to publish their research. Our recent study in South Africa, though, suggests they should be cautious of such practices.

International rankings of universities are big business and big news. These systems order universities on the basis of a variety of criteria such as student to staff ratio, income from industry, and reputation as captured through public surveys.

If you have been the victim of a crime, one of the first interactions you’ll have with police is when an officer takes your sworn statement. Language is key to this process: you tell an officer your story, and they record it, usually writing it by hand.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a worldwide crisis of food insecurity and unemployment. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns of rising hunger and poverty.

Two hundred years ago 5,000 people from Britain were settled in the south eastern part of South Africa in an area around present-day Makhanda and Port Alfred, then called the ‘Zuurveld’, by the British colonial authorities. To some South Africans (and particularly to many of their descendants) they are heroised as having brought development and ‘civilization’ to the area.

Language is a crucial element of any criminal justice system. Forensic linguist David Wright has written that people find themselves in the judicial system’s linguistic webs at every step of the legal process.

Lagos State can expect to experience 270 days of rainfall in 2020. Many Lagosians who suffered from the 2012 and 2017 devastating flooding are wondering whether this is usual or not. Nelson Odume unpacks the issues.

Emojis have become ubiquitous in text communication – messages are peppered with smiley faces, hearts and other graphic icons. They were first drawn by graphic designer Shigetaka Kurita, and generated by a Japanese communications firm called NTT DoCoMo in the late 1990s. Now they’re everywhere.

One of the shameful achievements of the African National Congress (ANC) in its 25 years of governing post-apartheid South Africa is that it’s living up to the political stereotype of what is wrong with post-colonial Africa – unethical and corrupt African leaders who exercise power through patronage.

There is growing interest in the creative economy in emerging markets in terms of its impact on employment and economic growth, as well as social and cultural impacts.

The infectious disease burden in Africa is very high, particularly for tuberculosis (TB), malaria and HIV/AIDS. In 2018, nearly a quarter (24%) of TB cases in the world were in Africa. The region accounted for 93% of malaria cases. The continent also bears the brunt of the HIV epidemic: 20.6 million of the 37.9 million people living with HIV are in eastern and southern Africa.

Around the world there has been a massive increase in demand for doctoral education. This mostly stems from the idea that the “knowledge economy” requires high-level skills.

WHEN governments run out of money, the consequences are usually very painful. To reduce spending to what is affordable

THE 2015-16 budget demonstrates the government’s determination to preserve SA’s hard-won

If you step into a classroom in South Africa’s Limpopo province during a lesson, you’re very likely to hear the teacher speaking more than one language. She might begin a sentence in English, and then switch to Sepedi – the African language most commonly spoken as a mother tongue in the province.

I first encountered Toni Morrison during my undergraduate years at Rhodes University in South Africa where her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved (1987), was taught as part of an American Literature course.

Dr David Nthubu Koloane, who was born in South Africa in 1938, was an extraordinary pioneer in the visual arts who fiercely defied any form of categorisation.

Educational psychologists described the widely used IQ test, Senior South African Individual Scales-Revised (SSAIS-R), as obsolete and not relevant to children growing up in the 21st century.

Over half a million households in South Africa’s former homelands disengaged from farming between 2011 and 2016, according to Statistics South Africa. This represents a loss of one in five crop farming households.

South Africa is a multilingual, multicultural space. As is the case for many other countries in Africa, it has a number of official languages – 11.

Analysts came to a range of conclusions about the budget speech delivered recently by South Africa’s Finance Minister Tito Mboweni. But few paid attention to his comments on arts and culture. He made a commitment that National Treasury will identify funds to support a new national theatre and museum, among other initiatives.

Kenya is a multilingual country with over 42 different indigenous languages. In addition, foreign languages are used by minorities in major towns and in some learning institutions. The most dominant foreign language is English which is an official language alongside Kiswahili.

Can you name the river closest to where you live? Have you ever seen that river on a map? How would you react if you saw that river, and others near you, in a map unlike others you have seen before?

Each year, Nature, a research output database, publishes its index of high-quality research outputs across a range of journals within the natural sciences. Topics range from climate change to human biology. The data on the index represent output by institution, by country and by extent of collaboration.

Educational software – whether it’s a teaching aid or a program designed to help teachers with administration – is big business. The recent multi-billion dollar acquisition of Turnitin, a program that is used around the world to flag possible evidence of plagiarism, is further proof of this. But does this application mean that universities are actually dealing with plagiarism?