Durban Port developments gather momentum:
The Port of Durban is a “construction site”, with multiple projects under way, including upgrading access roads and plans for a multi-purpose terminal, a liquid bulk terminal and a recreational waterfront.
The projects are part of the Durban Port Master Plan for the next 30 years to increase the port’s annual container handling capacity from 2.9 million to 11 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), said acting portfolio director of the KwaZulu-Natal Logistics Hub Johnny Mokheseng at a media briefing on Tuesday.
He said the vehicle terminal would increase its vehicle handling capacity from 600 000 units to one million units a year to meet global demand. But the plan is to be reviewed after the transport minister last year granted a 25-year lease to Fresh Produce Terminals to continue operating in an area earmarked as part of the terminal expansion.
“That has basically meant that we need to pause and review our plans … but again we’re not going back in terms of what we want to do, which is creating additional capacity for automobiles,” Mokheseng said.
The review of existing plans could mean the iconic Ocean Terminal Building may not need to be demolished. Transnet had obtained approval for its destruction in 2022.
Acting port manager Nkumbuzi Ben-Mazwi said construction was expected to go ahead at Mnambithi Group’s R1.1 billion liquid bulk terminal at Maydon Wharf in the next 24 months.
The terminal will have the capacity to store 100 000 cubic metres of liquid bulk cargo, including imported edible oils, caustic soda and phosphoric acid, for supply for local markets and the rest of Africa.
Transnet has leased the land to the business on a 20-year concession, which starts when the terminal begins operating.
Ben-Mazwi said Transnet had last week also issued a request for information from the private sector for the design, development and operation of a multi-purpose terminal in Maydon Wharf to handle agricultural dry bulk and other compatible cargo in the large port precinct, while another container terminal development was planned for the Point Precinct.
He said the refurbishment of Bayhead and Langeberg roads was on track while feasibility studies to address port congestion by widening the road and developing a new road connecting the port with the M4 South and the N2 freeway were under way.
Mokheseng said the project to deepen the North Quay to accommodate large new generation 350m vessels was “shovel ready” while other projects were in the feasibility study phase, including the Durban Bay Waterfront being developed with eThekwini municipality and Ithala Bank.
“There’s been some good work that is being done by the city … We’re going to be starting with the next phase together which will be the pre-feasibility study of that plan. It’s quite an exciting project,” he said.
Children who start grade one aged below six years at higher risk of having to repeat:
Children who enter grade one at the minimum age of 5½ years are at a significantly higher risk of repeating the year than those who wait until they are six to start school, a study has shown.
The report by Stellenbosch University also says boys who transition to English as the language of instruction in grade four encounter more difficulties than girls, even though all children begin with similar proficiency in an African home language.
In the Eastern Cape, the repetition rate for boys starting school aged five years and six months was 31%, compared with 19% for girls. Boys who entered grade one a year older, at six years and six months, had a repetition rate of 20%, versus 8% for girls.
“This suggests that younger entrants often may lack the developmental readiness required for formal schooling, leading to early academic struggles,” says the report, the findings of which are partly based on data collected from the Annual Schools Survey published by the department of basic education.
In South Africa, two different streams of application are applied for entrance into grade one. The first rule is that children can start the grade when they are five years and six months, provided they meet this age requirement by the end of the year preceding their entry. The second rule says children can start grade one any time after turning six years, but before turning seven.
The report found differences among the country’s provinces, with KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo appearing to follow the first rule more often. It said 44% of children in KwaZulu-Natal and 47% of those in Limpopo started grade one at the younger age of 5½ years, with just 7% and 4%, respectively, beginning school at 6½ years or above.
North West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Northern Cape had lower proportions of children starting school at 5½ years.
“This suggests a difference in how the entry rules are interpreted across provinces. Ultimately, these differences are most pronounced at the school level,” Bianca Böhmer, an economics researcher at Stellenbosch University, told the Mail & Guardian.
She said learners in poorer schools were more likely to repeat grades, drop out or fail to achieve basic proficiency in key subjects such as reading and maths.
The report found that learners who scored below 50% in grade three home language were more likely to repeat grade four, with repetition rates decreasing sharply for learners who had performed better in the subject. For instance, 98% of learners who achieved 75% or higher in grade three home language passed grade four on their first attempt.
Pupils with weak home language skills in grade three are also more likely to struggle with English as a first additional language in grade four.
The report also showed a relatively low enrolment for grade R — the preparatory year of schooling before grade one — compared with higher grades, which typically have around 1 million learners. It said less than 800 000 learners were enrolled for grade R in public and independent schools, excluding those attending early-childhood development (ECD) centres.
The Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Act, signed in September last year, makes grade R compulsory for all children at a school-starting age and parents who fail to enrol their children risk being penalised.
The report found that enrolment rates decline steadily as learners progress towards grade 12, the final year of schooling. In contrast with grade 10, which often experiences overcrowding due to high repetition rates, enrolment in grades 11 and 12 dropped below 1 million, with grade 12 enrolment falling even below grade R levels.
“Despite this decline, there has been considerable progress compared to the past, when a much smaller proportion of learners passed grade 10 and reached grade 12,” the report said.
On Monday, President Cyril Ramaphosa underscored the urgency of implementing universal access to quality ECD for children by 2030.
“We’ve seen time and time again how South Africa excels when we come together. We have consistently shown that we can solve difficult problems when we unite for a common cause,” Ramaphosa said at a summit in Johannesburg.
“We have an opportunity to rethink and restructure the entire ECD landscape, making it more effective, more inclusive and more impactful than ever before.”
Last week, Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana announced an additional investment of R10 billion in ECD over the next three years. This is above the R1.9 billion allocated to advance ECD services for the 2024-25 financial year.
Tiny weevils can fight off invasive aquatic plant on SA’s rivers:
A tiny weevil species has been released into the Crocodile River near Hartbeespoort to tackle the spread of the common salvinia, an invasive alien aquatic plant that is a growing threat to South Africa’s freshwater ecosystems.
On Monday Julie Coetzee, the deputy director of the Centre for Biological Control at Rhodes University, oversaw the release of the Cyrtobagous salviniae biological control agent into the Crocodile River.
The 2mm-long weevil species is a subaquatic herbivorous insect that feeds on the common salvinia (Salvinia minima), which is native to South America.
Since first being recorded at Hartbeespoort Dam in 2011, salvinia has spread across various water bodies in North West and Gauteng and has extended its range to the Limpopo River, which forms the national border with Botswana.
“If we don’t control this plant, if it is allowed to spread, we will see it moving into more and more water bodies across the country. Unfortunately, it thrives in polluted systems,” noted Coetzee, who was joined by the deputy minister of water and sanitation, Isaac Sello Seitlholo.
This plant, and other invasives like it, block out the sunlight from the water body, which reduces oxygen, she said. “Plants in that water body won’t be able to create oxygen through photosynthesis. If there’s no oxygen, there are no fishes, no crabs, no insects. It completely destroys or alters the aquatic ecosystem.”
Salvinia is on the move in the country’s waterbodies.
“We first recorded it around Hartbeespoort Dam and we’ve gradually been finding it in more of these Highveld dams. It was on Bon Accord Dam near Pretoria, Roodeplaat Dam, Bronkhorstspruit Dam and then we found a huge infestation on Bospoort Dam, which is on a different river — the Hex River, just north of Rustenburg,” Coetzee said.
“The Hex river flows into Vaalkop Dam and Vaalkop now has a huge salvinia minima problem at the Hex River itself and then Vaalkop overflows into the Elands [River], which joins the Crocodile, after Roodekoppies Dam, so now Roodekoppies Dam has got some salvinia minima from Harties.”
Vaalkop and Roodekoppies are near each other and join in the Crocodile River. “Then it flows all the way to the Limpopo River on the border with Botswana and we found it in the Limpopo River as well.
“And the problem with that is that it’s on our border with Botswana; it’s going to flow into Zimbabwe, so it’s a bit of an issue … We should have a mandate to control anything coming downstream from our invaded systems.”
In part through Rhodes University’s Centre for Biological Control, Coetzee has conducted extensive research over several years to evaluate the efficacy of Cyrtobagous salviniae as a biological control agent for salvinia. The centre was granted approval for release of the insect late in 2024.
“It’s used in Florida [United States] quite extensively and they don’t really regard salvinia minima as much of a problem plant anymore. We know from that success, that we are highly likely to get success in South Africa as well,” she said.
The weevil was imported from Louisiana in the US, which also battles Salvinia minima.
“We’ve released a small starter population,” Coetzee said of the 150 insects that were unleashed on Monday. “But what we will be doing is rearing them at rearing facilities. We have one at Rhodes University in Makhanda.
“We have also set up community rearing stations around Hartbeespoort Dam, Vaalkop Dam, and Bronkhorstspruit. We have a lot of community partners who have realised the value, the sustainability and the cost-effectiveness of these insects.”
Another batch of 100 insects was put into a rearing station at Lakeland, an estate at Hartbeespoort that is “already rearing the water hyacinth control agents [the water hyacinth hoppers] for us”.
Seitlholo applauded Coetzee and her team for the way they were tackling the salvinia problem “at the beginning of a value chain”.
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