News
WEDNESDAY APRIL 15 2015
Scholarship alive and
well, says foundation
Rumours of it
discontinuing
not true, says
executive director
Ilse Fredericks
EDUCATION WRITER
[email protected]
R
UMOURS on social media
that the Mandela Rhodes
Scholarship is going to be
discontinued have been dismissed as untrue by the executive director of The Mandela Rhodes
Foundation.
Shaun Johnson told the Cape Argus that
plans for the expansion of the scholarship
programme were recently approved.
Social media gossips have been claiming
that the scholarship was coming to an end
as the trust was moving to the UK as a
result of a clause in Rhodes’s will.
But Johnson said rumours about the discontinuation were “absolutely not” true.
He said there had been no consideration to discontinue the scholarship since the
start of the campaign to have the Cecil John
Rhodes statue at UCT removed.
Johnson said the foundation’s board of
trustees had met in the city last month and
approved “ambitious and exciting expansion
plans” for the scholarship programme,
“which is regarded as an exceptional African
success story in its 11th year of operation”.
“Our dream is that by the 15th anniversary of The Mandela Rhodes Foundation (in
2018) we will have 100 Mandela Rhodes
Scholars from all over the continent in residence. This suggests about 70 new
ON THE RHODES: The statue of Cecil John Rhodes that once stood at UCT’s upper campus is driven away. Meanwhile,
plans are afoot to extend the number of Mandela Rhodes Scholarships offered to students every year. PHOTO: ROSS JANSEN
scholarships per year by then, with 30 scholars in addition going into their second year
of Masters study.”
The 2015 class of Mandela Rhodes Scholars has been made up of 40 students from
eight African countries, studying at 12 different institutions of higher learning. There
are also 15 second-year scholars from the
class of 2014.
The Foundation was brought into being
in 2003 when Nelson Mandela agreed to
partner with the Rhodes Trust.
The statue of Cecil John Rhodes was
removed last week after the UCT council
voted to accept a proposal to have it removed.
It followed a month after student Chumani Maxwele threw human excrement
on the statue and said he was acting on
Mobile loos bring
interim relief to
burgled school
Ilse Fredericks
EDUCATION WRITER
[email protected]
SCHOOLING returned to normal at a Bonteheuwel
primary school, which had only one toilet for more than
500 children, after mobile toilets were delivered yesterday morning.
Yesterday the Cape Argus reported that pupils at
Cedar Primary School had to stand in long queues on
Monday to use the only toilet that remained undamaged after a recent arson attack.
Teachers had to walk to neighbouring schools to use
the toilets. The school day ended early on Monday after
most parents collected their children during the
course of the morning. The school’s administration
block was first burgled and then gutted in a suspected arson attack on March 29.
The principal’s office, a copy room, the staff room,
the toilets, a kitchen and the secretary’s office were
destroyed in the blaze.
Principal Carlin Symonds said it had not been the
first time the school had been the target of vandals and
burglars this year, and during the recent school holidays food from the school’s feeding scheme had been
stolen, allegedly by security staff who had to guard the
school.
On Monday, Jessica Shelver, spokeswoman for
Education MEC Debbie Schäfer, said mobile toilets
were supposed to have been delivered to the school by
Friday and it was unclear why the supplier had not
delivered them.
Yesterday she said 18 toilets had been delivered.
“Three mobile classrooms have been ordered to
accommodate the admin staff as an interim measure
until the new admin block is built.”
Symonds said pupils had been able to start using the
toilets by yesterday morning. “I’m happy that things
are starting to return to normal.”
Soul singer Percy Sledge dies
BATON ROUGE: Percy Sledge, who recorded
the classic 1966 soul ballad When a Man Loves a
Woman, has died. He was 74.
East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana Coroner
Dr William “Beau” Clark confirmed Sledge died
early yesterday morning.
Sledge’s first recording took him from hospital orderly to a long touring career averaging
100 performances a year and an induction into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. With
his forlorn, crying vocal style he remained an indemand performer in the US in later years. – AP
CAPABLE OF HANDLING
ROUGHER CONDITIONS
Class leading ground clearance of 177mm.
behalf of the collective pain and suffering of
all black people, and was protesting the
“colonial dominance” still palpable at UCT.
On March 18, vice-chancellor Dr Max
Price announced that the decision process
over the statue was being accelerated.
The university has indicated that the
statue was taken to a safe location, which has
been approved by Heritage Western Cape.
7
City appoints
new MyCiTi
Control Centre
contractor
Yolisa Tswanya
STAFF REPORTER
[email protected]
THE CITY of Cape Town has
appointed a new contractor to
continue with the MyCiTi Control
Centre after the previous contractor, Lumen Technologies, had their
contract cancelled due to nonperformance last year.
TMT Services and Supplies is
the new contractor. The city’s
mayco member for Transport,
Brett Herron, said the new
appointment had taken longer
than expected due to the “complexities involved in putting a partially completed project out to
tender again”.
“Numerous intricacies have to
be concluded to get the Control
Centre to operate as was originally specified and the city is confident
that we have appointed a contractor that can fulfil all these requirements. Even though this will not
happen overnight, we are looking forward to the day when the
MyCiTi Control Centre will operate as we have envisioned.
“TMT Services and Supplies
will play a pivotal role in reaching
this goal,” said Herron.
TMT will help the city ensure
that commuters have access to
real-time information via electronic signboards at the MyCiTi
stations.
“As the control centre will be
tracking each and every MyCiTi
bus on all of the MyCiTi routes
across the city, Transport for Cape
Town, the city’s transport authority, will know exactly where a bus
is at any given point in time.”
Passengers
can
call
0800 65 64 63 – not only to complain, but also to tell the city
when they are impressed with the
MyCiTi service, the bus drivers
and the men and women working
at the stations, Herron said.