There is an adage that states “if you want to know the
future of a nation, study the behavior of its teachers”.



The most potent force for political, economic and social progress in society is education. The measure of how great a nation will rise is determined by how many people in its population are educated. The African continent today has a total purchasing power parity gross domestic product (GDP) of $6.7 trillion, and a population of 1.2 billion people. 



According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in 2016, sub-Saharan Africa had a literacy rate of 76% compared to 89% in South and West Asia, 87% in the Arab states and 98% in the developed nations. 



This literacy rate in sub-Saharan Africa is far from adequate, and calls for urgent and practical action to improve it.



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We are living in an era characterized by the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) where technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain are changing all aspects of our lives. Factories are automating. Because of these changes, the nature of work is changing. 



Many jobs are disappearing altogether, and new types of jobs are being created. For example, we now have jobs that did not exist 20 years ago, such as Data Scientists. AI is now able to diagnose severe diseases such as pulmonary embolism, epilepsy and leukemia complementing the work of medical professionals. Because of the rapid automation in the medical field, doctors today require an in-depth knowledge of technology. 



These changes in society because of 4IR require new sets of skills. Are our education systems ready to capacitate our people with the requisite skills to tackle the problems of 4IR?  Do we have enough teachers at all levels of our educational systems to be able to give our people skills that will make them useful in the 4IR era? Do we have enough educational institutions to be able to skill our people? Unfortunately, the answers to these two questions are in the negative.



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Given that we do not have enough teachers nor educational
institutions to provide a critical mass of our people the requisite
capabilities that will help them survive in the 4IR, what is to be done? One
way of tackling this problem is to take a lesson from the first Indian Prime
Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who realized that for India to thrive in the 20th
century, it needed to invest in elite technical education. In this regard, he
introduced the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). 



Nehru had this to say in 1956 at the first convocation address of the first IIT in Kharagpur, a city in West Bengal: “…Here in the place of that Hijli Detention Camp stands the fine monument of India, representing India’s urges, India’s future in the making. This picture seems to me symbolical of the changes that are coming to India.” 



It is vital that African countries create a few elite
institutions that will drive the African continent into the 4IR. The
Pan-African University supported by the African Union is a good start, but we
can do more.



Additionally, these elite institutes should not be limited to higher education only but must also focus on primary and secondary education. One example in Johannesburg is the African Leadership Academy (ALA), which targets gifted 16-to-19-year-olds. Today, the ALA has alumni from 46 different countries making an impact on the political, economic, and social aspects of the African continent. 



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For us to thrive in the 4IR era also requires our educational experience to be multi-disciplinary. In our limited institutions of higher learning, students enrolled for programs in the human and social sciences must also study technological subjects. 



Those enrolled in technological programs must study human and social subjects. Technological subjects should focus on the issues that confront the African continent, such as affordable and appropriate technology, limited and incomplete data, and cost-effective manufacturing. 



The human and social subjects should focus on the urgent issues facing Africa today, such as social cohesion, connectivity, stability, conflict and unity. Due to the limitations of physical infrastructure and good teachers, African countries should pull their resources together and invest in online platforms to facilitate education through modern techniques such as blended and augmented learning. 



The outcome of the education system, whether at primary, secondary, or tertiary levels, should be logical, numeracy and verbal skills. These skills will give our people the capacity to tackle the challenges of the 4IR such as coding, problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity and decision-making.  



– Tshilidzi Marwala is a professor, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg. He deputizes President Cyril Ramaphosa on the South African Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Multi-Disciplinary  Education In The 4IR Era

The officer stared at me through the glass window as I tried to explain why I didn’t have a visa. I was unaware that the 90-day visa waiver to Tanzania excluded business travel. It was hot, humid and I was soaked from the rain. The only thing between me and paradise was him.
“Mam, would you please step inside the office.”
I knew exactly what was happening; I had seen this before in a Quentin Tarantino movie. I was being detained.
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It was only a few hours before that I had boarded a boat from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar. For four hours I sat on the rocking boat, watched City Lights &#8211; the silent black and white movie with Charlie Chaplin &#8211; spoke to the German businessman next to me and brushed up on my Swahili.
Now I was here, sitting across the table from three officers, wondering if I’ll fly back to South Africa in handcuffs.
I don’t remember how it happened but instead of paying a $300 fine, I got off with a friendly warning and great travel advice.
As soon as I reached Kisiwa House, a bed and breakfast in Stone Town, I dropped my bags and called a tour guide. We weaved through the narrow cobble-stone streets, dodging the children playing and people riding scooters and bicycles. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the doors.
The closer I got to them, the finely chiseled flowers, scales, ropes and chains became clearer. The Arabic style doors, often found with transcriptions, are square at the top while the Indian doors have round tops.
Stone Town, named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000, is rich in history. The Persian Baths, Tippu Tip’s House and House of Wonders are popular tourist attractions. There’s a stone sculpture next to Christ Church, which used to be the center of the slave market. The tour guide said the altar inside the church used to be a whipping post to test the slaves’ strength.
After a long day of sightseeing, the tour ended at the waterfront. I picked a spot close to the sea and watched children flip, roll, tumble and dive into the water. In the distance, the fishermen sailed to shore to set up for the evening Forodhani market.
The rain didn’t keep anyone from coming to indulge in the local cuisine which included piles of lobster, fish, octopus and calamari. The food is cooked over a fire and eaten with coconut bread.
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I had an interesting conversation with a fisherman about life at sea. He was part of a team of 10 who worked day and night shifts, so they always had fish. Although he enjoyed his easy life, he longed to experience life outside Zanzibar.
The next morning I was woken by roosters crowing, motorbikes riding and the call to prayer from the Mosques. After breakfast, I set out to Prison Island, a smaller islet off the coast of Zanzibar, by boat. As the waves pounded against the small wooden boat, the two-man crew struggled to steady it. When I looked around and saw only blue I began to understand just how vast and powerful the ocean is. It was thrilling, yet scary.
Then out in the distance I saw the white sandy beach of Prison islet. Although it never housed the incarcerated, its low walls would have made for an easy escape. The island has two main attractions: clear waters for snorkeling and giant tortoise. There were tortoises that were over 150 years old and some weighed up to 200 kilograms.
A few hours later, I was back on the mainland wandering through the stores along Kenyatta Road. While staring at a painting of the Masai, done in the Tanzanian Tingatinga style, I was distracted by a lady yelling at her child.
“Iwe, Musabata!” I smiled. It was a phrase I was all too familiar with, growing up in a Shona-speaking household. It means, “You, don’t touch that.”
I walked over to her, as she scolded her child and struck up a conversation. She left Zimbabwe six years ago hoping to provide a better life for her children. She was a teacher at one of the local schools and hoped to one day return to Zimbabwe.
On my last night on the island, I met some tourists for sundowners at Africa House, a restaurant on the beach with an amazing view of the ocean. Everyone gazed at the sun, in its red, yellow and orange glory, as it dipped beyond the horizon. It was as if they were seeing it for the first time. I sank in my seat and watched a solitary boat sail the vast sea. Perhaps this is what JRR Tolkien saw when he said, “Not all who wander are lost”. Just then Paradise by Coldplay began to play. I smiled, how fitting.

Wander lost  In Zanzibar

There is a difference between travellers  and tourists; a difference between a trip and journey.
If you fall into the latter category in both instances, then perhaps a jaunt to Jambiani in Zanzibar is worth considering. In three-and-a-half hours, direct bi-weekly flights (if traveling out of Johannesburg in South Africa to Zanzibar) transport the intrepid and the intrigued to another world distinctly different from the metropolis you have left behind. From the shopping malls and high rises of the city of gold heading northeast to six degrees south of the equator and, to some extent, back in time, you arrive in the spice islands of Zanzibar.
For most, the first impressions are that of the old-world Stone Town, a UNESCO World heritage site in Zanzibar city, where one loses oneself in excitingly-confusing narrow streets filled with vendors bent on selling you everything from cashew nuts and badly-recorded CDs of local music to local art and craft (the best of these being the wood works). You will find no malls here, no fast food franchises and very little to remind that you are actually in the 21st century. You become aware that almost every structure is made of coral stone featuring elaborate wooden doors, for which Zanzibar is particularly famous, guarding mysterious and rich cultural heritage within the walls.
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It is now time to head east, crossing the island, toward Jambiani where the melting pot of Arabic, British, Persian, Portuguese and other previous colonial influences give way to real rural Africa. Within an hour ($50 by road in a sedan), you arrive in Jambiani, the village that snakes its way for 10 kilometers up the southeast coast of the island. Leaving the only tar road and arriving in the village via bumpy dirt roads laden with goats and chickens, you are struck by two things. First, the mesmerizing colors of the ocean lightly covering the immense sandbar and, second, the village itself, which is beyond modest and a stark reminder of the fact you are now in one of the poorest parts of the planet.
This can be disconcerting at first, until you notice the smiles, the almost euphoric shouts of jambo (hello) from the children and the genuinely-welcoming demeanor of the people. Jambiani is different from other parts of Zanzibar in that virtually all the hotels are owned by locals, and where there are foreign-run properties, these are almost always in association with the natives either as landlords or equal partners. It is the latter that’s most appealing for travelers looking to support the local community but wanting a level of service and facilities that may be not be present in purely local accommodations.
The three-star Coral Rock Hotel here is roughly $100 per night, and offers the facilities (like Wi-Fi) and services one expects. It’s sandwiched between the ever-changing tides and colors of the Indian Ocean on the one side and the quaint working village of Jambiani on the other.
Whilst the villagers work the beach, ocean and sandbar, you will most likely be spending your time sunbathing, exploring, snorkeling, diving, kitesurfing, kayaking or eating fresh seafood and fruits. The food is enjoyable and the atmosphere relaxing whilst the climate seems to constantly stay sunny and between 28-32 degrees Celsius.
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No need for high heels and formal attire, they are wasted here. Just remember to cover up the bikinis whilst walking in the village or when walking past a mosque. The prime activity and raison d’etre is relaxation. A week here seems like the antidote to the fast-paced rat race in the city. It’s a place where you feel safe and can get away from it all.

Tag: UNESCO

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Multi-Disciplinary Education In The 4IR Era

Wander lost In Zanzibar

Far From The Madding Rats