The Daily Discourse

Time now for our regular Monday feature Legally Speaking. This morning we will look at the right to basic education for undocumented children. This after the department of basic education published a national circular notice to all schools to allow undocumented pupils access to education following a landmark judgment by the Eastern Cape High Court in Makhanda in December, which ruled it was unconstitutional and unlawful to deny undocumented pupils a right to education. However, some schools were still turning away undocumented immigrant children despite the ruling

GUEST: Cecile van Schalkwyk, an Attorney at Legal Resources Centre

Eskom announced yesterday that it will stop rotational loadshedding but the probability of loadshedding during the week remains. Over the weekend the embattled power utility implemented Stage-3 power outages, due to low emergency reserves. Meanwhile Eskom's new CEO, Andre de Ruyter, says he will extend lifestyle audits to lower level staff, in renewed efforts to curb wastage and cleanup the power utility.

GUEST: Eskom spokesperson, Sikonathi Mantshantsha

78% of Grade four learners can't read for meaning in South Africa. Nic Spaull, a Senior Researcher at Research on Socio-Economic Policy at Stellenbosch University's Department of Economics says instead of addressing that issue with books and meaningful teacher training, we're instead going to invest in coding and robotics for young children. Nic Spaull was responding to President Cyril Ramaphosa's SONA speech which touched on the issue of introducing coding and robotics in primary schools.

GUEST: Nic Spaull, a Senior Researcher at Research on Socio-Economic Policy at Stellenbosch University's Department of Economics

Meanwhile, the Nelson Mandela Foundation says it's time Parliament looked at ways to enact what it calls a 'Hate Law'. The Foundation's CEO, Sello Hatang was reacting to utterances by De Klerk on the SABC last week marking 30 years after Mandela's release and the unbanning of political parties, De Klerk said that he did not "fully" agree with the UN's ruling that apartheid was a crime against humanity. Hatang says it should not be left only to institutions such as theirs to address such issues..

Guest: Sello Hatang, CEO of the Nelson Mandela Foundation

Last week, the ANC came under widespread criticism following the party's defence of the last apartheid president FW De Klerk's presence at the State of the Nation address. In turn, the FW De Klerk foundation then released a statement in which it further reiterated that the former president's statement that he does not agree that apartheid was a crime against humanity.

Guest: Mac Maharaj

The EFF has threatened to heighten what it calls "militant protests" against former president F.W De Klerk, if the ANC and government continue to include him in public events. In a statement the De Klerk Foundation claims that the UN's classification of apartheid as a crime against humanity formed part of an agenda by the Soviet Union and the ANC along with its allies to stigmatize white South Africans. The statement also sought to justify and reason why apartheid was not a crime against humanity.

guest: EFF secretary-general, Marshall Dlamini

The Federal Legal Commission of the DA has written to George Mayor, Melvin Naik, informing him that his membership with the party has ceased. The DA's constituency head for George, Geordin Hill-Lewis says Naik is no longer a member of the party. He was given 48 hours to resign as Mayor, which he refused to do. The action taken by the party comes after the DA caucus in George passed a motion of no confidence in Naik last month.
GUEST: DA George constituency head, Geordin Hill-Lewis

Food security researchers are calling for change in regard to government’s policy on food security. They go on to say that the child support grant of R430 a month is insufficient to significantly impact malnutrition rates among South Africa’s children. This they said ahead of President Cyril Ramaphosa State of the Nation Address calling on him to do something. Now that the president is done with his speech, are they happy with what he said regarding this issue and also what would they like to see change?

GUEST: Professor Julian May - Director of the national Centre of Excellence in Food Security, at the University of the Western Cape

SABC is hosting the #CXOseries a quarterly event with the goal of establishing an exclusive network.

SABC is hosting the #CXOseries a quarterly event with the goal of establishing an exclusive network.