"It is probably the question I get asked most often by students: how did you achieve what you did? There is an urgency to the question and more than a little self-interest. If I can figure out how he made it, the student reasons, then maybe I will know how to chart my own path. It was always difficult to provide a simple answer to a long and complex journey. So I often leave the inquiring student with a pointer here or a caution there. Never enough to really account for lessons from learni...

Ways of speaking can help heal or they can provoke; they can inflame passions or settle nerves.' Professor Jonathan Jansen is fast becoming a household name in South Africa, for his critical and at times inconvenient voice. In this collection of articles previously published in The Times Jansen highlights the issues that confront our country -- the issues we need to talk about. With humour, humility, occasional anger and a good dose of common sense Jansen discusses education, race and iden...

Over the past few years, it has become clear that the path of transformation in schools since 1994 has not led South Africa's education system to where we had hoped it could be. Through tweets, posts and recent protests in schools, it has become apparent that in former whites-only state schools, and private schools, children of colour and those who are "different" don't feel they belong.Following the astonishing success of How to Fix South Africa's Schools, the authors sat...

Can racism and intimacy co-exist? Can love and friendship form and flourish across South Africa’s imposed colour lines?Who better to engage on the subject of hazardous liaisons than the students Jonathan Jansen served over seven years as Vice Chancellor of the University of the Free State, in South Africa. The context is the University campus in Bloemfontein, the City of Roses, the Mississippi of South Africa. Rural, agricultural, insular, religious and con...

'I believe that citizen action is vitally necessary as we come out of the heady days of post-apartheid euphoria.' Professor Jonathan Jansen has become a trusted commentator on the state of South Africa -- reminding us of our past and asking citizens to leave their comfort zones and contribute to righting the wrongs of our society. Why should we get involved? Jansen gives seven compelling reasons: If ordinary citizens do nothing, we face even greater social instability in the light of stubb...

"It was under Sarah's roof that I learnt how to live and where she would teach us how to die. Under that roof I learnt the value of selfless giving and the importance of personal discipline. Sarah did not only tell, she showed."Song for Sarah pays tribute to Jonathan Jansen's mother, and to all mothers who raise families and build communities in trying circumstances. Jansen offers this endearing praise song to contradict vulgar stereotypes of Cape Flats mothers. Tracing he...

South Africa has an education crisis, despite the fact that the government spends the biggest slice of its budget on education, more than any other African country. And yet the crisis persists. Jansen and Blank looked at South African schools that work, in spite of adverse conditions – schools in poor communities, schools with overcrowded classrooms, schools in both rural and urban environments – and have drawn out the practical strategies that make them successful. 19 short films (include...

It started as advice to his own two children entering adulthood, it spread to his students at the University of the Free State and now tens of thousands of his followers of Twitter and Facebook wait for Jonathan Jansen's words of wisdom every day. Each day Jansen (@JJ_UFS) writes a Letter to my children – a nugget of advice on life, love and becoming a compassionate, thinking human being. Jansen has become South Africa's moral barometer in a time when leadership seems to be sorely lacking ...

At a time when newspapers are full of the woes of the South African education system and stories of teachers who let the children in their classes down, this book shows that this is not the whole picture; it is a celebration of heroic teachers who have struggled against great odds to give their students a chance of success. Great South African Teachers celebrates the massive contribution of remarkable teachers, both past and present, working in South African schools. The stories, sent in b...

'I proudly wear my badge as a Covid-19 front-line hero. I believe I was meant to be where I am during these trying times.' Our nurses have witnessed the pandemic first hand, compassionately caring for patients amid war-like circumstances. The havoc caused by the pandemic highlighted existing fault lines in the South African health system, and nurses faced shortages of staff and vital life-saving equipment. Colleagues tested positive and died. Visitors were not allowed, so nurses had to be ...

Jonathan Jansen goes back to school: to the Cape Flats high school next door to where he grew up.After learning that the school got the worst matric results in the Western Cape in 2023, Jansen signed up to help out. He spent two years in the principal's office, teaching some of the science subjects and getting to the bottom of extreme pressures bearing down on teachers and learners, for whom it was impossible to leave the trauma of broken families and violent crime at the school ga...

Professor. Pundit. Public nuisance. In his columns, books and on social media, Jonathan Jansen is prolific, and he likes to speak his mind about schools and universities, race, politics and our complex South African society. He has brought incisive analysis, compassion and a sense of humour to some of the most controversial issues in our country for many years. And now, in this memoir, Jansen goes back to his early years: growing up in a loving, fiercely evangelical family on the Cape Flat...