The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, also known as Wits University, is a leading, internationally-ranked, research-intensive university located in Johannesburg, South Africa, the economic heartland of Africa. Committed to academic and research excellence and social justice, Wits generates high level scarce skills for a globally competitive world, while addressing local social and economic development. At the forefront of a changing society, Wits is a social leader, dedicated to advancing the public good.
Wits is known for its work in deep level mining, science, health sciences, accountancy, law, governance, and the humanities, amongst others. It houses five faculties which comprise 34 schools. Wits offers approximately 3 600 courses to about 32 500 full-time students, of whom about a third are postgraduate and 55% are female. Almost 65% of all doctoral candidates and about half of all enrolments are in the Science, Engineering and Technology fields. Wits has developed about 130 000 graduates in its 93 years of existence. It has a proud record in that about 87% of all publications are in accredited international journals.
LGBTI students at South Africa’s universities are living double lives to protect themselves from heterosexual students who ridicule and attack them.
Eradicating TB across the globe by 2035, as the World Health Organisation hopes to do, will only take place if the global funding and will improves.
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More than 1.5 million people die of tuberculosis across the world every year. Although testing and screening has improved and more drugs are available, it is not enough to conquer the scourge.
The evolutionary tree may not be this simple.
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The challenge we face after a century of extraordinary discoveries is pinning down the lineage and mapping the evolutionary route through which we as human beings got here.
Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in Nigeria emboldens him to play a leading role in African affairs.
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Former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo led confidently on African affairs because they were elected by comfortable majorities at home and had solid control of their political parties.
The language that’s spoken in science classrooms is very different to every day English – even mother tongue English speakers may struggle because of this.
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We view school science as largely a practical subject, but pupils must understand the language of science – which is often very different from every day language – if they are to excel.
Oprah Winfrey’s academy for girls in South Africa is well-resourced and produces good results. These factors mean it is in the minority.
Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
Parents want to know how much they need to spend to secure a good education - and job prospects - for their children. But is it as simple as balancing your own books and ignoring the bigger picture?
Unless Africa can manage the effects of climate change, the agricultural future for many African’s looks bleak.
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Books have active political lives. They inspire social movements and bind people together. Books can stand as short-hand symbols for larger galaxies of ideas.
Window on the world: Children in Nigeria film a Yoruba religious procession on their cellphones.
REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye
After a decade of narrowing fiscal deficits, South Africa has borrowed heavily since 2009 to support the economy. The debt pile exposes the country to the risk of a sell-off by foreign bond holders
A page from a 1934 sex education manual that, like many of its era, managed to be less about sex than about policing racial boundaries.
RPH West, Facts about Ourselves for Growing Boys and Girls (Public Health Department of the City of Johannesburg and the South African Red Cross Society, 1934). Wits Historical Papers, South African Institute of Race Relations Collection, AD 843 RJ/NA 18.
In South Africa’s segregated pre-apartheid state, even sex education was racialised. Christian missionaries had very different lessons for black and white children.
Luangwa River, Zambia, at the start of the dry season.
Emma Archer van Garderen
We need political intervention if southern African countries are to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The MDG for eradicating poverty and hunger has been helped through new high-yielding varieties of rice (right) that can withstand drought in Africa.
Reuters/Erik de Castro
Science has had a crucial role in helping to meet the targets of the Millennium Development Goals. But there’s much more to do.
Student doctor Livhuwani Mashanzhe (R) from the University of Johannesburg takes a blood test from a patient at Kimberley train station in South Africa in this file picture.
Juda Ngwenya/Reuters
Skilled mid level health care workers can relieve the workload of other health care workers and can help make universal health care a reality for South Africans.
A Mozambican woman tries to salvage her belongings after severe flooding.
Grant Lee Neuenburg /Reuters
Failed by the institutions meant to protect them from exploitation, South African Post Offices workers gave up on the legal system, resorting to illegal means.
The expected departure of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Nigeria’s finance minister will leave Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa without a significant voice in the IMF and World Bank.
South Africa’s National Health Insurance aims to ensure universal access to health care – one of the most persistent structural inequalities.
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