Although the widely anticipated removal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) preferences for South Africa by the US on 1 January 2027 will have a minimal impact on the domestic economy as a whole, specific sectors like agriculture and the motor industry will inevitably be negatively affected.
Governments can keep talking. Businesses cannot keep waiting. An AGOA agreement may come too late to protect some jobs and investments.
Losing AGOA would not close the American market, but particular exporters and workers could face substantial losses.
I attended a graduation session where students refused to come on stage when the photographer experienced a technical problem with his camera. We live in an era where photographic evidence is required to prove that something happened. However, it may merely be evidence that someone knows how to use an artificial intelligence tool.
South Africa is helping young people become ready for work. But what happens when the economy has no work to offer them?
A year of workplace experience can change a young person’s life. Returning to unemployment can expose the limits of that promise.
A university’s ambitions can stretch far beyond its gates. Its finances determine how far those ambitions travel.
For South Africa’s public universities, the challenge is to open their doors to students, support them through their studies and produce research that serves the country. How to sustain that work has consequences well beyond the balance sheet.
The chancellor of the North-West University (NWU) and professor of practice at the NWU Business School, Dr Anna Mokgokong, called for science, enterprise and partnership to convert rural potential into shared prosperity.
A career that began behind a microphone in Mahikeng more than four decades ago came full circle on Thursday, 22 October 2026, when North-West University (NWU) conferred an honorary doctorate in Communication Science on veteran broadcaster Tim Modise.
What if the peel from a grapefruit could help clean polluted water? Research by the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Dr Murendeni Ravele shows that this common fruit waste could offer a cheaper, greener alternative to conventional methods for removing harmful substances from wastewater.
Prof. Raymond Parsons
What if the establishment of an NWU School of Mines and Mining Engineering in Rustenburg became the beginning of something much larger?
What if it opened the door to broader access to university education, stronger healthcare training, executive development, thriving local enterprises and lifelong learning across the region?
That is the scale of ambition this opportunity deserves.