{"id":292198,"date":"2019-01-04T07:52:33","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T05:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=292198"},"modified":"2019-01-04T07:52:33","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T05:52:33","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-464","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/292198\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-464\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/2019-01-03-call-for-six-out-of-10-schools-in-sa-to-become-technical-schools\/\">60% of South African schools should be technical or vocational schools, according to\u00a0basic education director-general Mathanzima Mweli.<\/a><\/strong> Of South Africa&#8217;s 25,700 schools, only 1,000 are technical schools &#8211; which is not enough to create the skills and specialities needed in the job market. Focus should be on coding, business and accounting. [TimesLive]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2019-01-04-00-watershed-political-wars-lie-ahead\">South Africa should gear up for a year of &#8216;watershed&#8217; political battles, as the country heads into the national elections.<\/a> <\/strong>Analysts are all over the board in predictions for where things could go &#8211; with the ruling ANC aiming for a two-thirds majority, and other expectations that the party will lose its majority altogether. [Mail &amp; Guardian]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2019-01-03\/south-africa-s-school-pass-rate-rose-to-78-2-percent-in-2018\">Despite lifting the matric pass rate in 2018 to 78.2%, South Africa faces an uphill battle to lift the quality of education which is ranked 114th out of 137 countries<\/a><\/strong>. South Africa spends 15% of its budget on education, but a largely unskilled workforce contributes to an almost 28% unemployment rate. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/mbalula-ready-testify-state-capture-inquiry\">The Zondo commission into state capture is set to continue in 2019, with former police minister Fikile Mbalula talking to investigators to testify before the judge.<\/a> <\/strong>Mbalula said that he was not offered the position of police minister, but is ready to give a full account of his discussions with the Guptas. [ENCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The South African rand had recovered losses by the end of the day on Thursday after a sharp selloff in emerging market currencies on rising concerns about global growth. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the rand was at R14.28 to the dollar, R18.05 to the pound and R16.27 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/291888\/where-to-get-your-2018-matric-results\/\">Here&#8217;s where you can get your matric results for 2018.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>60% of schools should be technical schools, the education department DG says; political battles lie ahead for South Africa as we head into the 2019 election; the matric pass rate is up, but South Africa faces an uphill battle to raise the quality of its education system; and Fikile Mbalula is prepared to testify at the state capture commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":52813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-292198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":292214,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292198\/revisions\/292214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}