Education & Training

Equipping and re-equipping professionals with the insights they need to stay relevant in their professions is no simple task. The rapid speed at which technology is advancing can be terrifying for many people, as just as they have become used to a certain way of doing things, they need to be retrained.

During the pandemic, many schools around the world were forced to shift from physical to virtual classrooms in a matter of a week. This quickly sparked debate among academics and industry leaders about the tenets of traditional learning versus that of online learning, at a time when education continuity was critical. 

Learnerships are an essential resource to future-proof your business. Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) is only effective in meeting its goals if the transformative ethos of the legislation is embraced. If B-BBEE is approached with a begrudging compliance mindset, merely ticking boxes, it will fail.

Workforce training, while essential for upskilling, can cause operational downtime which affects the company’s bottom line. However, this is easily countered with the introduction of on-demand online training. This gives workers the flexibility to attend their training sessions without impacting their work schedules.

It was former Colorado football coach Bill McCartney who said, “all coaching is, is taking a player where he can’t take himself.” And McCartney would know. In his 13-year tenure, he won just shy of 100 games, three Big 8s and a National Championship, earning him a well-deserved place in the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.  Yet, within an organisational or business context, how can coaching take people where they are unable to go on their own?

Imagine that you’re updating your CV or LinkedIn profile. When listing your skills, would you be able to state that you are ‘proficient in the use of ChatGPT3’? This revolutionary Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool was launched in November 2022, so knowledge workers have had several months to teach themselves to use it, and to understand its many capabilities and limitations. 

As organisations across the globe contend with an increasing number of cyberattacks, schools and higher learning institutions are looking for innovative and cost-effective ways to protect their students, staff, and data from breaches and ransomware.

When we think about the human right to education, we often think about it as relating to children. We imagine children starting their school career at a young age and being supported as they progress through the years. Ultimately emerging from the system as young adults who have the capacity either to study further or to find employment. This is their right. It’s enshrined in the constitution.

The world has largely opened up again after COVID-19. Now it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get down to the business of educating South Africa’s children. And while technology is going to play an important role in helping us overcome the backlogs caused by the pandemic, it’s not a silver bullet that will miraculously transform our education system.

Through investigatory reports and interviews, Jonathan Jansen reveals the structural conditions for chronic dysfunction in a sample of South African universities. He reveals the political economy at work and the intense competition for resources on campuses. He also provides interventions for these fragile institutions.