On Tuesday, 1 September, Statistics SA briefed the Portfolio Committee on Economic Development on the Quarterly Labour Force Survey. The briefing focused on the high rate of youth unemployment (36.9%) and the triple challenges of inequality, poverty and unemployment. A recent article highlighted most of what Statistics SA presented to ...
After a low key week, the main chambers have scheduled a broad and busy programme, which includes a motion to impeach the President, oral questions to the Deputy President and Economic Cluster; ministerial and members’ statements, policy discussions and debates, and the processing of assorted bills and statutory instruments.
In ...
By Rofhiwa Maneta
This week marked the midpoint of parliament’s third term. On Wednesday, parliament was host to a number of sittings directly related to young people. The NYDA presented its performance for the first quarter of the financial year to the Portfolio Committee of Monitoring and Evaluation. Similarly, ministers ...
There's little action on display in the main chambers and committee corridor this week.
The programme has been curtailed in order to give committees time to finalise critical legislation and other work. In addition, the revised schedule has made provision for committee chairpersons to receive media communications training. This is ...
This week marks the mid-way point of the third term and the programme has a familiar pattern: lots of unglamorous legislating, oversight and scrutinising, with some set piece battles in prospect.
Fireworks are expected during the debate on the parliamentary ad hoc committee report on the Nkandla upgrades. MPs visited ...
By Sheilan Clarke
Statistics show that 35.2% of South African cabinet ministers are women while 41.5% are parliamentarians. This means that of the 54 cabinet ministers, only 19 of them are women and out of a total of 400 parliamentarians, 166 are women. This is according to a United Nations ...
On Tuesday, 4 August 2015, the Department of Basic Education briefed the Basic Education Portfolio Committee on violence plaguing schools in South Africa. The Department blamed the legacy of apartheid, as well as current socio-economic realities such as extreme inequality for the high prevalence of violence in schools. A closer ...
By Sheilan Clarke
Imagine a world where you don’t have to pay for school, fork out a fortune to get an education or stand in long queues at NSFAS for a bursary. Well that might be a possibility as government is reportedly aiming to roll out free education for tertiary ...
By Sheilan Clarke
June is Youth Month – a time where we commemorate the class of ’76 while also celebrating the tenacity and creative spirit of this generation’s youth. But things aren’t all rosey. Young South Africans continue to face issues such as unemployment, lack of funding for education and ...
On Tuesday, 9 June 2015, the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) briefed the Economic and Business Development Select Committee on the policy objectives to create work, particularly for young people. Although millions of Rands are being spent on youth development, particularly youth employment, the proportion of young people not employed ...