Your greatest asset is being able to earn
IT’S a new year and an exciting time if it coincides with starting a career. Earning your first pay cheque is exhilarating, but at the same time it is easy to fall into the habit of spending it all. Spending your entire salary each month and buying things on credit can be a slippery downward spiral into the dark world of debt.
By following some basic laws of finance, you can achieve financial peace of mind and a more gratifying life.
For most youngsters who are entering employment for the first time the most important financial asset for a long time is likely to be their ability to earn an income. This potential for future earnings is aptly called human capital.
Although wealth is built through money management, perhaps even more important is the management of your personal human capital. This can be enhanced through education, training, skills development and experience.
From a financial planning perspective, your future earnings potential has a significant financial value. It should therefore be apparent that losing your ability to earn – either temporarily or permanently – poses a significant risk to your quality of life. This could come about through illness or disability. If you support a young family, you also need to consider the financial risk to them of your death.
Risk mitigation should therefore form a cornerstone of your financial plan. There are five important factors that should shape your plan:
1. Medical scheme: Accidents and illness happen, and the associated costs can be enormous. If you are young and healthy, perhaps a hospital plan may be an economical option. In terms of the ongoing cost of being a member of a medical scheme, it is important to remember that schemes impose a late-joiner penalty if you join only after the age of 35.
2. Income continuation benefits: These pay you a regular income if you experience a loss of income as result of disability, injury or illness. Based on your condition, the income can be temporary or permanent, and typically continues to your selected retirement age.
3. Capital disability benefit: This generally pays a lump-sum benefit if you become permanently disabled and are unable to earn an income. The lump sum can be used to settle debts, cover the cost of rehabilitation and possible modifications to your home or car. A portion of the lump sum can be invested to provide an ongoing source of income for you and your family.
4. Life cover: This pays a lump sum to provide for your family’s financial needs on your death. Generally speaking, you would want it to cover any outstanding debt, provide for your children’s education and cover any shortfall in your family’s regular income.
5. Will: Dying without a will complicates and delays the winding up of your estate and may have unintended consequences. Even if you do not have any dependants, you should have a simple will in terms of which you leave any assets to a beneficiary of your choice.
It is particularly important that the above-mentioned cover, as well as your will, is reviewed regularly or as your personal circumstances change. What may be sensible at this point in your life may very quickly become unsuitable, as your career and personal life evolve – for example, when you get married, have children, get divorced, change jobs or move countries. Your will should be reviewed and updated at each significant stage in your life.
SOUTH Africa is a country best known globally for its miraculous story of transition from an unjust, inhumane, draconian system of apartheid to constitutional democracy.
This is the same story that gave the global community one of its favourite sons of the 20th century, Nelson Mandela. The late statesman, addressing the launching National Congress of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) in October 1990, reminded us that “education is the most powerful weapon with which one can change the world”.
In affirmation of these words, subsequent democratically elected administrations opted to make education “an apex priority”. The ninth chapter of the National Development Plan (NDP) emphatically concludes that education, training and innovation are central to South Africa’s long-term development plan as they are the core elements to eliminating poverty and reducing inequality.
Despite the well-intended strategic objectives of the NDP, South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. Some reports, including a 2019 study by the World Bank, indicate that the top 10%, which is about 3.5 million people, control 86% of all the wealth in this country, while the bottom 90% controls 14% of the wealth. This well-known yet still shocking, picture illustrates how we have to take even more drastic measures as a country to reduce inequalities, poverty and unemployment.
There is broad societal concurrence that education and skills development becomes the most potent intervention that can be made to turn the situation around. As a developing country with aspirations to be a leading nation in the global south and the continent, we rely heavily on a steady supply of adequately skilled young South Africans with the required values and ethics.
The world economy has changed drastically over the past few decades with the growing reach of globalisation and technological innovations in the ICT space; as a result the world of work has changed drastically and our education system is required to be responsive.
I argue strongly that in reality, the current education system is not designed to uplift the poor majority from the doldrums of poverty, whether wittingly or unwittingly. The intention of this article is not to play the all-too-familiar blame game, but rather to highlight some of the striking challenges that make it incredibly difficult for us to reach our developmental goals as a nation.
A quick reflection of the 2020 matric results provides part of the uetion of what we still believe are challenges that can be decisively addressed.
First, there was a noticeable decline in the number of learners who took critical subjects like maths and physical
science. This was also coupled with a decrease in the overall pass rate in these critical gateway subjects. What makes this picture more worrisome is that the lower physical science scores are more apparent in the more disadvantaged schools and provinces.
It should be noted at this point that narrow national focus on matric results instead of the entire schooling journey of our learners from the early childhood development (ECD) phase to the last year is most likely one of the causal factors to the declining enrolments in the gateway subjects. The mechanical approach to education coupled with the obsession to “tick the box” forces schools to achieve the ideal 100% pass rate and pure maths, physical science and accounting are considered problematic subjects.
This has been a consistent trend over the past few years and it suggests that additional challenges such as the language of instruction and the resources for teaching this subject may have an impact on its teaching and learning. Our sad reality is that most schools in Quintile 1-3 categories still do not have adequate resources like well-equipped and functional libraries and laboratories.
The Sustainable Development Goals, which are defined by the UN, require countries to “build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive, and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive, and effective learning environments for all”.
Furthermore, a growing number of non-experimental studies indicate that investments in quality school infrastructure are strongly associated with improved learning outcomes, even after controlling for students’ socio-economic background and other relevant covariates.
There is also empirical evidence to conclude that the ECD and foundation phases are critical towards the development of cognitive skills that are central within the learning journey, especially at the later stages. It goes without saying that the human capital within those phases, especially ECD, should be well-trained, compensated and motivated to carry out their task.
We contend that in order to close the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots”, we need to incrementally grow our public investment towards education infrastructure. This should include ICT infrastructure and resources to increase access for the poor and marginalised so that we can rapidly embrace strategies such as blended learning in times of Covid-inspired uncertainties.
Among the more potentially far-reaching interventions that can be made in the short to medium-term is to review the current schools funding model so that those in poorer communities can be provided a fair opportunity to participate meaningfully in the productive economy.
It is our strong view that there should be an equitable funding formula so that we can see poorer schools
receiving more resources. Individual school needs should be taken into account when budgeting. The same should apply to the current post-provisioning model, which we equally believe is not designed to ensure that there is an adequately trained, equipped and well-motivated teacher in front of every learner.
Lastly, we contend that there should be a concerted effort towards the project to decolonise the curriculum and in essence education in this country. It is abundantly evident that the goal to decolonise the curriculum is symbiotically inter-linked with developments in the higher education space.
The pandemic has afforded us an opportunity to question and deal with orthodoxies of the curriculum, including assessment to truly empower the learners to be active citizens equipped with the 21st century competencies. This current curriculum is one example of one-size-fits-all and is not suitable for rural and poor township school. The current education system requires that we embark on building resilience beyond this pandemic crisis.
This is not mere political speak or sentiment, but rather our belief that such an undertaking at a practical level would address and demystify the ideologies of class, gender, ethnicity, ethnocide, inequality and race that dominate colonialism to young learners in schools.
Mugwena Maluleke is the general secretary of Sadtu.
THE Turkish public was left outraged by the recent execution of 13 Turkish hostages allegedly by the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in Northern Iraq’s Gara region on February 14. Turkey’s Operation Claw-Eagle 2, encompassing one of the largest areas in recent campaigns against the PKK, killed 48 militants. Turkey also lost three Turkish soldiers during the attack.
Turkey’s Defence Minister Hulusi Akar claimed that the PKK captors had killed Turkish security officials and civilians. However, pro-Kurdish media has blamed the Turkish government for the deaths, claiming that the hostages died as a result of bombing by Turkish forces.
The PKK has several times previously released Turkish hostages to their families and state officials. So the question is why did the Turkish state make little to no effort to rescue its citizens?
Turkish opposition parties and foreign experts in the region have questioned Turkey’s controversial rescue operation. In questions directed at parliament, Istanbul Deputy from the Democracy and Progress Party (Deva), Mustafa Yeneroglu, asked for clarity from the Turkish Foreign Ministry regarding the military operation into Northern Iraq.
Yeneroglu asked what the political and military goal of the operation was, and whether any contact has been, or will be made with other countries to save citizens from the PKK.
The opposition also raised several questions regarding why the Turkish Defence Minister initially reported all the hostages as being civilians, while Turkey’s authorities then revealed the identities of 11 of the victims to be former soldiers and police officers.
The Turkish state failed to disclose the remaining two names, butthe PKK claimed that some of the Turkish intelligence (MIT) operatives died during and as a result of the clashes amid heavy bombardment.
Dutch journalist Frederike Geerdink, who specialises in reporting on Kurdistan, provoked questions and doubt regarding Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s intention in the recent offensive in a tweet: “25 years ago, the #PKK released #prisoners by handing them over to their families and state officials, here’s some footage. If only this would have been possible now, as it happened until as recent as 2013, but this time, the #state refused.
“The prisoners were held for years by the PKK which did not kill them. Why did they kill them now?
“Hasn't Turkey in the past managed to get back members of its forces following negotiations with the Workers’ Party (PKK)? Why did it prefer that the prisoners die this time? Who benefits from their death?”
Brussels-based Turkish-Kurdish journalist Fehim Isik also expressed his scepticism on Twitter.
The PKK has been fighting against Turkey since 1984 to establish an independent or autonomous “Kurdistan” in south-eastern Turkey.
Despite several efforts towards peace between the various Turkish governments and the PKK, Turkey’s strong military and bureaucratic establishment opposed the Kurdish openings, and forced constitutional courts to shut down seven Kurdish parties in parliament since 1993, also jailing many of their MPs.
Erdogan has thus far managed to maintain a tight grip over Turkey’s secular state establishment, however, the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) has always remained a threat to Erdogan’s absolute power and a majority in parliament since 2003.
Erdogan had initially achieved the most promising Kurdish peace process since the conflict started, but he ended it in 2015 when the HDP came in fourth place with 13.12% of the vote in the June 2015 Turkish general election.
The HDP’s success meant that for the first time since the inception of the AKP’s rule in 2002, the ruling party’s
parliamentary majority had been lost.
It was not long before that Erdogan secured a majority once again through a “repeat election” in November 2015.
The Kurdish Party’s most recent blow to Erdogan’s power base occurred during the municipal elections of June 2019, which saw Erdogan lose his 26-year-long hold on Istanbul to the opposition CHP.
Over 2 million Kurds in Istanbul voted for the Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate Ekrem Imamoglu to punish Erdogan as he removed many Kurdish mayors and jailed HDP leaders.
Since losing the Kurdish vote in recent years, the ruling party formed the People’s Alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
Erdogan, in 2017, transformed Turkey into an executive presidential system and was elected as president in 2018 with the support of the MHP.
However, recent polls indicate that Erdogan’s electoral alliance is not going to get 50% + 1 vote in the coming presidential election in 2023.
Erdogan has already visited several key figures within the Turkish opposition
in a bid to secure enough votes.
Turkey’s right-wing parties and main opposition CHP have always been in support of Erdogan’s offensive against the PKK. With his electoral fortunes looking increasingly likely to wane in the coming 2023 election, the risk is that Erdogan, who has lost the opportunity to form an alliance with HDP leaders, may target Kurds to bolster his support.
Turkish prosecutors have launched investigations into two prominent human right defenders, HDP deputies Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu and Hulya Kaya, over critical remarks regarding Turkey’s Gara operation.
Turkey’s ultra-nationalist Homeland Party, MHP and AKP organised joint rallies in Turkey’s Nigde city to call on HDP to shut down following the assassination of Turkish hostages.
Erdogan has already given a strong indication that this will be the case during a recent rant against the US, whom he accuses of supporting the PKK. Tough days may be on the horizon for Turkey’s Kurds.
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