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KwaZulu-Natal Business 2017-18 edition

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KwaZulu-Natal Business 2017/18 is the ninth edition of this highly successful publication that has, since its launch in 2008, established itself as the premier business and investment guide to the KwaZulu-Natal Province. The 2017/18 edition includes special features on the Richards Bay area and its increasingly important Industrial Development Zone, the investment appeal of Durban and the growing maritime economy. Up-to-date overviews on the province’s economic sectors provide unique insights. Global Africa Network Media (www.gan.co.za), the publisher of KwaZulu-Natal Business, specialises in business-to-business print and electronic publications, producing a series of region-specific, annual print journals. Every province in South Africa is covered by this unique range of journals and websites, complemented by a national business guidebook, South African Business.

OVERVIEW Education and

OVERVIEW Education and training KwaZulu-Natal has 30% of South Africa’s schoolchildren. SECTOR INSIGHT Curro plans a tertiary listing on the JSE. • The KZN Provincial Government has paid out R1.5-billion in bursaries. Education faces big challenges in South Africa. KwaZulu-Natal, with a population of more than 10-million, more than half of whom live in rural areas which suffered decades of neglect, has made significant strides in providing access to education. With 30% of South Africa’s pupils in its schools, the province’s results have a big bearing on how the nation fares in annual examinations. There is now near universal access to primary and secondary schooling and a new drive to enrol pre-school children in Grade R has achieved a 70% success rate. The province has 1 689 early childhood development centres. Access to tertiary education has also increased exponentially in South Africa in the last two decades. There were some alarming scenes on South African university campuses in 2016, with students organising under the banner of #FeesMustFall. There are some serious issues that South Africa’s educational planners need to tackle, not least the issue of funding, but this should not obscure the fact that access has improved. Before the end of January 2017, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) had paid R1.3-billion to 26 public universities to advance payment of registration fees for poor students. The provincial government of KwaZulu-Natal bursary programme paid out R1.5-billion in the three years to 2016 and more than 5 000 graduate interns obtained jobs at provincial government departments at a cost to government of more than R100-million. For the 2016 academic year, the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) received more than 84 000 applications for the 8 770 spaces available in its first-year undergraduate programmes. In this context, educational analyst Nic Spaull put some myths to bed in an important article in the Mail & Guardian in 2016. Despite being highly critical of the education system and arguing strongly that “meaningful reform” is needed, he tackled the false idea that somehow “black youths are regressing educationally”. Spaull pulled together a series of studies to show that: • between 1986 and 2012 the number of black university graduates increased sixteenfold • between 2004 and 2014 the number increased by 137% (against a black population rise of 16%) • graduate unemployment is low at 6% (although worse for blacks than whites). KWAZULU-NATAL BUSINESS 2017/18 84

OVERVIEW There are two universities and two universities of technology in KwaZulu-Natal, and the national distance university, the University of South Africa (Unisa), has a presence in five locations. USB Executive Development offers business courses for executives. UKZN has close to 40 000 students studying on five campuses in two cities. Greater Durban hosts Howard College, Berea (environment, engineering, law, humanities) and the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine at Congella. The UKZN administration and the Graduate School of Business are based at Westville (also science, engineering, health) whereas the Edgewood, Pinetown, campus focusses on education. The Pietermaritzburg campus offers a broad academic programme but its specialities are fine art, theology and agriculture. UKZN also hosts the National Research Foundation. The Durban University of Technology (DUT) has six faculties operating in seven campuses in Durban and the Midlands. DUT is well known for its outstanding graphic-design school and offers one of only two chiropractic programmes in South Africa. The University of Zululand offers diploma and degree courses on two campuses at Empangeni and Richards Bay. Private There has been a strong trend in recent years towards the opening of private or independent schools, and not necessarily in the very expensive bracket. Curro believes it will be running 200 schools in South Africa by 2020, double its current number. There are six Curro schools in KwaZulu-Natal. Curro’s purchase of Embury, the teacher-training college in Durban, launched the company’s entry into the tertiary sector. It is now planning to list its tertiary division on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). Advtech, the other big private company, already has 27 tertiary campuses nationally, in addition to its 78 schools operating under a variety of labels. Advtech operates 10 educational sites in KwaZulu- Natal, including schools such as Crawford and Trinity House, a chefs’ school (Capsicum), three Varsity Colleges and the Design School for Southern Africa. Training National and provincial government are investing heavily in training. Various provincial government departments awarded about R316- million in support and bursaries for more then 5 000 students across the province in 2016. What for several years were known as Further Education and Training Colleges (FET) have now been re-branded as Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Colleges. KwaZulu-Natal has nine such colleges with a total enrolment of about 80 000. Coastal KZN TVET College gives students practical experience through facilities such as the Nongalo Industrial Park, where school furniture is repaired and burglar bars and computer tables are made. The college has several sites on the South Coast and caters for 15 400 students. Majuba TVET College has a focus on engineering as the coal and steel industries are prominent in Newcastle. Some of their engineering students have done apprenticeships on Sibanye gold mines in Gauteng. The Mnambithi TVFET College is located in the Battlefields Route tourism area and offers National Diploma courses in tourism, among other qualifications. CONTACT INFO Council of Higher Education: www.che.ac.za Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa: www.isasa.org KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education: www.kzneducation.gov.za National Department of Basic Education: www.education.gov.za National Department of Higher Education and Training: www.dhet.gov.za National Research Foundation: www.nrf.ac.za 85 KWAZULU-NATAL BUSINESS 2017/18

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