Columns

It is hard to believe that the DA, now in government, could have made South Africa’s education system worse. Yet that is exactly what its Minister of Basic Education, Siviwe Gwarube, appears set to achieve with a new history curriculum that is at once militant, nationalist, and deeply ideological. In its current form, it risks dumbing down South Africa’s children, undermining their ability to compete globally, and provoking the kind of anti-democratic and anti-capitalist militancy that neither the country nor the DA can afford.

Economics & Policy

Inequality is not the real problem, poverty is, Stellenbosch economist says.

Columns

Frans Cronje writes on why the prospect of a 4% or 5% economic growth rate into and through the 2030s, with a stable ANC-led government in Pretoria and much reduced protest levels, is as plausible as any other scenario for the country – especially if the confidence, investment, growth, and living standards lessons of the first 15 years after 1994 can be replicated.

Global

JD Vance has returned from Pakistan without a deal on the Iran war, leaving the trajectory of the conflict increasingly clear, according to a note from advisory firm Frans Cronje Private Clients.

Columns

Richard Tren writes on the view from Washington on the latest global developments.