Some people still measure degrees based on its employability. Is this a fair standard to use when degrees are not obtained solely to get jobs?
Are Bachelor of Arts (BA) degrees really “useless”? Many people on social media think that it is simply because of the apparent employment challenges BA graduates face. This idea is further portrayed by governments cutting funding for specifically humanities degrees. As seen in the United Kingdom, the University of Hertfordshire scrapped courses such as History, English Literature and Linguistics to name a few, due to a declining demand making the courses no longer financially viable.
The common perception of BA degrees is that, because they are not professional or specialised degrees, they are mostly academic, and unemployment among BA graduates is high. It would be unfair for people to use this criteria to label Bachelor of Arts degrees as “useless”.
According to Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey (2025), “possessing a tertiary education, especially a degree, enhances one’s likelihood of securing employment.” The report also shows the more employable sectors for the youth such as Elementary occupations (which require short training) at 25.3%, trade at 24.5%, sales and services at 20.0%, community and social services at 19.8%. This highlights that unemployment is not tied to a specific field of study but is embedded in a country’s economic challenges. The real divide is between graduates and non-graduates in a struggling economy like South Africa’s, but to assume that employment is the only reason degrees are pursued is incorrect.
Graphic showing the top four employable field in South Africa according to Statistics Soth Africa Quarterly Labour Force 2025 report. By: Zebrena Ralph
Professor Paul Ashwin, from Lancaster University, argues that “rather than the employment and salaries of graduates, the central educational purpose of university education is to transform students through their engagement with knowledge”.
Degrees are obtained for different reasons. While some people prepare for specific career paths like healthcare or law, the purpose of higher education goes far beyond employment. A university degree enables knowledge acquisition, critical thinking and personal growth. To label a degree as “useless” because some graduates — including Bachelor of Arts graduates — face unemployment is inaccurate and reveals a deeper misunderstanding of what a university degree is meant to achieve.
BA career paths are unique, hence the stigma. Graduates from specialised fields like Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) often move into clearly labelled graduate programmes, making these career paths appear neat and measurable. BA graduates, however, rarely follow a linear path. Their broad skills allow them to move into media, marketing, governance, research and corporate roles, often shifting between industries over time. These careers are diverse and non-linear, thus harder to track statistically. Tracey Ashington, a graduate recruiter, explains, that “many jobs are not advertised at all… This is known as the hidden job market.”
BA careers are therefore not nonexistent — they are simply harder to map.
Ironically, employers often complain about graduates lacking the very skills a BA degree develops. According to LinkedIn, adaptability, teamwork, problem-solving and communication skills are seen as core workplace competencies. In an era of automated and artificial intelligence, the ability to interpret information, understand people and think ethically are becoming more valuable.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the ‘useless BA degree’ narrative is that the sole purpose of studying is employment. Reducing tertiary education to a degree being a ticket to getting a job ignores its role in developing thinkers, citizens and problem-solvers, not just employees.
FEATURED IMAGE: Graphic showing the top four employable field in South Africa according to Statistics Soth Africa Quarterly Labour Force 2025 report. By: Zebrena Ralph
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Albertina Sisulu, and Adelaide Tambo are often remembered as women who stood behind great men while their husbands were imprisoned, exiled, or silenced by Apartheid. However, that memory is incomplete.
These women are not simply supporting figures in South Africa’s liberation story; they are central characters in it. They were organisers, political actors, caregivers, and leaders who carried families, communities, and, in many ways, the struggle itself on their backs.
The new Netflix documentary The Trials of Winnie Mandela offers a deeply moving portrait of Mama Winnie — from her youth to her marriage, to becoming one of Apartheid’s fiercest opponents, and later enduring public scrutiny during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. What the documentary captures so powerfully is not just Winnie Mandela’s politics, but her resilience.
When Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years, Winnie kept his name alive. While the apartheid state tried to crush resistance, she remained visible, vocal, and defiant. At home, she was left to raise two daughters under immense pressure. In public, she became the face of resistance. In private, she still had to be a mother, provider, protector, and head of the household. She was expected to be everything.
That reality is not unique to Winnie Mandela. It is the lived reality of millions of South African women today.
According to Statistics South Africa, approximately 6.1 million households or 37.9% of all households in South Africa were headed by women in 2018, with female-headed households being most common in rural provinces such as the Eastern Cape (46.9%), Limpopo (45.8%), and KwaZulu-Natal (45.0%). More recent figures show that by 2024, that number had risen to 42.4% of households nationwide, meaning more than two in every five South African homes are led by women.
This is not a small social trend; it is the backbone of South African society. And yet, despite carrying homes, raising children, and often being the sole breadwinners, women continue to receive little recognition for their labour. Their sacrifices are normalised. Their struggles are overlooked. Their strength is expected.
Instead of appreciation, many are met with criticism, scrutiny, and impossible standards much like Winnie Mandela herself, whose legacy is too often reduced to controversy rather than the weight of what she carried.
A graphic of resilient women. Graphic and photos: Sanele Sithole
I think of women like my own mother, and countless others whose names will never appear in documentaries or history books, but whose work has held families together against impossible odds. These women build homes from very little. They sacrifice quietly. They endure endlessly, yet we rarely tell their stories in full.
South African history has long celebrated men as heroes, while women are remembered as wives, widows, or footnotes to male greatness. Women were never standing beside history; they were making it.
The question is no longer whether women deserve recognition.
The real question is: when will we finally honour the women who have been carrying this country, often alone, all along?
FEATURED IMAGE: A graphic of resilient women. Photo by: Sanele Sithole
The film is vibrant, emotional, and filled with the kind of energy that reminds audiences why Michael Jackson became known as the King of Pop in the first place
The new biographical movie Michael, does not merely attempt to tell the story of the King of Pop; it attempts something far more difficult — to search for the fragile human being buried beneath decades of noise, headlines, applause, and controversy.
From its opening moments, the movie bursts with life, overflowing with rhythm, colour, and excitement. Yet at the same time, ironically carrying an almost dreamlike sadness.Childhood dissolves beneath stage lights. Innocence disappears behind screaming crowds. The young Michael is portrayed not as a child discovering joy, but as a child being sculpted into perfection.
Still from Michael of Jafaar Jackson performing. Photo: Supplied/The Bioscope
Jaafar Jackson, who is Michael Jackson’s nephew, delivers a performance that was much more than an imitation, he literally captured the spirit that made Michael so captivating. The concert recreations are absolutely breathtaking, the camera follows him with almost religious awe as he glides across stages drenched in light filled with dazzling and electric choreography and infectious energy that make it impossible not to smile.
Whether recreating the moonwalk or commanding massive crowds, the performance radiates the charisma that made Michael Jackson one of the most influential entertainers in history.
He does not simply recreate the voice, the posture, famous gestures through the utterly shocking resemblance; he captures the contradiction at the centre of Michael Jackson himself which is the collision between extraordinary confidence on stage and profound vulnerability away from it.
Some scenes feel so alive that they almost blur the line between cinema and reality. The film stops feeling like a biography and becomes pure sensation. The heartbeat, rhythm, memory. Seeing people holding themselves down to their seats when the Thriller dance comes on. People humming softly to songs like Billie Jean and Human Nature, excluding that one person in the back who thought no one could hear them. Each song arrives carrying emotional weight, reminding audiences how deeply his music embedded itself into global consciousness. The film understands that Michael Jackson’s art was never background noise. It was cultural atmosphere.
Still from Michael of Thriller. Photo: Supplied/The Bioscope
In my opinion what makes Michael especially powerful is its refusal to portray fame as glamorous. While delving deeper into Michael’s superstardom it also shows his vulnerability, creativity, and desire to connect with others through his art. The quieter scenes give the movie emotional depth without overshadowing its celebratory tone. It balances spectacle with humanity, particularly through its portrayal of Michael’s complicated relationship with his father. Some of the film’s most emotional scenes emerge from this tension. Moments where achievement and pain seem inseparable.
Of course, no biographical film can perfectly capture a life as enormous and complicated as Michael Jackson’s and the complexity of telling Michael’s story is perhaps most visible in the absence of Janet Jackson from much of the film, despite her importance within both the Jackson family and popular culture itself.
There are moments where certain parts of the story could have been explored more deeply. But rather than becoming trapped in controversy or darkness, Michael the film reminds viewers why people fell in love with Michael Jackson in the first place while fully encapsulating one truth; Michael Jackson was never allowed to exist as an ordinary person. He lived beneath a microscope powerful enough to distort everything it touched.
Michael Jackson’s legacy continues to transcend through generations. Sitting in the cinema, it becomes impossible not to notice the unique atmosphere surrounding the movie. Older audiences reliving memories of growing up with Michael Jackson’s music, while younger viewers experience his artistry with fresh fascination and excitement. The theatre itself begins to feel like a meeting point between generations connected by the same songs, dances, and emotions. Few artists possess that kind of timeless cultural power and eternal presence. Michael Jackson was one of those rare figures who did not simply make music, but created moments that became and still become part of people’s lives.
I recommend you to experience this magic for yourself!
Vuvu Rating: 10/10.
FEATURED IMAGE: Michael Poster. Photo: Supplied/ The Bioscope
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Bleeding every month against our will is already too much to deal with.
South Africa treats sex like a public health crisis and periods like a personal problem. You can walk into almost any campus clinic, any bathroom, any office, and find a bowl of free condoms. No questions asked. Try finding a free pad. Sex is a choice; bleeding is not.
This is not just a South African oversight, but a continuous pattern rooted in a system that has historically centred male bodies as the default. Male needs are treated as public health priorities, and female biology a private inconvenience.
The hypocrisy is costing South African girls their education, according to Dr Lydia Chibwe from the University of Pretoria, roughly 30% of school-going girls in this country skip school each month. That means missed classes, stifled opportunities, and compromised dignity.
I have noticed something rather absurd: I can access free condoms more easily than I can access pads. And those condoms are usually made for men. Which is odd because sex is a choice, periods are not. A simple walk into most female bathrooms on campus, and you will not find a single dispensing machine for pads or tampons. If there are any, they are always empty. If your period arrives unexpectedly, or if you just cannot afford products that month, you are on your own.
In the South African economy, sanitary products have become a luxury that many girls cannot afford, so they resort to toilet paper, newspaper, or even socks, which are not designed to sit against the body for hours, catching blood. Not only is that undignified, but it is a health risk that can cause infections, rashes, and toxic shock syndrome.
There is a shift in conversation in Africa. At a regional level, the African Coalition for Menstrual Health Management has been pushing for menstrual health to be recognised as a human right, not a private issue. In Kenya, two days of paid menstrual leave for employees was introduced in December 2025.
Conversations about allocating national budgets for sanitary products in schools in the above countries are being had. Yet, South Africa has only removed Value Added Tax (VAT) on menstrual products.
Condoms displayed on the table in the Campus Health Clinic reception area. Photo: Naledi Maraisane
Access and cost aside, women and girls still have to deal with the pain.
Period cramps are not just ‘discomfort’, but they can be so severe that you pass out; I know, because it has happened to me. The pain is unbearable, and yet, in South Africa, we do not get sick days for it. There is an expectation to sit in lectures, meet deadlines, and show up to work while our uteruses contract like they are trying to escape our bodies. We push through because “that is just what women do.”
Add cultural stigma to that, and it gets worse. Many girls are taught that periods are dirty, shameful, and not to be discussed. So, they do not ask for help. They do not ask for pads. They just disappear for a week each month and fall behind.
We are always fighting to belong in spaces that were not built for us. The last thing we need is to be shunned for bleeding against our will every month. We should not have to work and study through agonising pain, while still struggling to afford and access basic menstrual products and services. If society can make space for free condoms, it can make space for free pads. Because equality does not start when we stop bleeding, it starts when we stop being punished for it.
FEATURE IMAGE: An empty sanitary pad dispensary box located in Solomon Mahlangu’s basement female bathrooms. Photo: Naledi Maraisane
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At Wits, decolonisation remains incomplete as English dominance continues to limit true multilingual inclusion in learning and assessment.
In 2015, during the #FeesMustFall movement, South African universities were forced into a reckoning that extends beyond protest and policy reform. At the University of the Witwatersrand, this moment led to a language policy that introduced English, isiZulu, Sesotho, and South African Sign Language (SASL) into its academic framework. Yet, as Wits advances through its 2023 Strategic Framework, a plan guiding the university’s goals around transformation, inclusion, research, and global competitiveness, though a contradiction remains: the institution speaks of decolonising knowledge while leaving the language of learning largely unchanged.
Decolonisation without linguistic transformation is incomplete. A curriculum may diversify its content but if access to knowledge remains dependent on English, exclusion is not removed but relocated into the medium of instruction. This dynamic can be understood through what Miranda Fricker terms epistemic injustice, which is a condition in which certain forms of knowledge are undervalued because of the language in which they are expressed. In this context, students are not excluded from knowing, but from having their knowledge fully recognised unless it is articulated in English.
As Steve Biko warned, “the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”, a condition sustained not only through content, but through the very language in which knowledge is delivered and recognised. His insistence that education must cultivate critical consciousness rather than reproduce subordination sharpens this argument: when students are compelled to translate their intellectual lives into English to be legible, the system does not liberate thought; it disciplines it.
This is not abstract. In lecture halls across Wits, language shapes how students learn and are assessed. In science and health sciences courses, students encounter, process, and are tested on complex ideas in English, even when understanding often begins in other languages during peer discussion. Learning in familiar languages can improve comprehension, participation, and confidence, reduce cognitive load and also allow students to engage more fully with complex material.
In engineering tutorials, students switch to isiZulu or Sesotho in order to unpack difficult concepts, only for that cognitive work to disappear in formal assessment, where only English counts. In Sociolinguistics, this is understood as code-switching, a skilled practice rather than a deficiency. What appears as hesitation is, in reality, intellectual labour: students are learning disciplinary content while translating it across linguistic systems; a demand not equally placed on all. They are not struggling with content; they are performing unpaid intellectual labour to make that content legible within a single dominant language.
Wits visibly acknowledges four languages on campus signage, raising questions about the absence of South Africa’s other official languages in learning and assessment. Photo: Alice Dhlamini.
This extends beyond technical disciplines and reflects a broader experience across faculties where language shapes who can fully access knowledge.
As third-year industrial engineering student Tshedza Tsiololi explains, “some engineering terms, such as dynamic system or torque, do not translate easily into everyday language… This makes learning time-consuming, especially in the absence of accessible translation tools”. This translation process carries material consequences. When comprehension is delayed, so too is performance, affecting assessment outcomes, time to completion, and the cost of education. Language barriers are therefore not only pedagogical concerns but structural inefficiencies.
The result is not a lack of understanding but a delay in it. Students carry an invisible cognitive burden, constantly translating their thinking. Language cannot be treated as a secondary issue in curriculum reform.
Language shapes how knowledge is accessed, processed, and recognised. When a medical student must translate reasoning to communicate with a patient, or an engineering student is assessed in a language that can flatten thinking processes, language becomes a gatekeeping mechanism. Yet the persistence of English is often justified through its role in global academia. While not unfounded, this argument is incomplete. Countries such as Germany, Japan, and South Korea demonstrate that strong language production can occur in national languages alongside English. Multilingualism is not a barrier to global relevance but a source of intellectual flexibility.
Wits’ current approach reflects both progress and limitations. As noted by the Head of African Languages, Dr Soyiso Khetoa, “the university’s focus on English, South African Sign Language, isiZulu, and Sesotho is informed by demographic research”. Institutional efforts, such as language-learning applications, support isiZulu acquisition. However, this raises a deeper question: what happens to students whose linguistic identities fall outside these dominant categories?
A comparative perspective complicates this further. In Tanzania, the adoption of Swahili under Julius Nyerere aimed to democratise education and strengthen national identity. This model significantly expanded access and participation at foundational levels, enabling students to learn in a familiar linguistic context. While access improved at foundational levels, challenges emerged in higher education, including limited technical terminology. This illustrates that linguistic transformation is both possible and complex, requiring sustained commitment rather than selective implementation.
Accommodation based on geographic prevalence may be efficient, but it is not neutral. It creates new margins. Students who speak other African Languages remain excluded, not because their languages lack value, but because they fall outside institutional feasibility. In this way, multilingualism risks becoming selective rather than transformative. South Africa’s own history offers parallels. Institutions such as Stellenbosch University and the University of Pretoria have shown that full academic systems can be developed in Afrikaans, raising the question of why similar levels of investment have not been extended to African languages in a democratic context, while also revealing how language can function as both inclusion and exclusion.
Bert van Pinxteren argues that expanding the language of learning is expensive and complex. “Developing academic terminology in African languages, training staff, and redesigning assessments require time and resources”, he notes. These challenges are real, but difficulty is not a justification for permanence. Technology tools, from translation software to AI-assisted terminology development, are reshaping what is feasible. The limitation is increasingly institutional: whether universities are willing to invest in systems that reflect their students’ realities.
When African languages are used informally for explanation but excluded from formal assessment, universities reinforce a hierarchy where legitimacy remains tied to English. Inclusion becomes conditional.
Restricted-access signage at Wits mirrors ongoing debates around who is fully recognised within the university’s linguistic and academic spaces. Photo: Alice Dhlamini.
The 2015 policy was a meaningful step, but without implementation, it risks becoming symbolic. If students must translate their intellectual lives into one dominant language to be recognised, decolonisation remains incomplete. The issue is the distinction between symbolic and material transformation: policy signals intent, but assessment determines whose knowledge is legitimised.
A serious commitment to transformation does not require abandoning English. It requires building multilingual academic systems where English is one of several legitimate languages of learning. This could include bilingual modules, expanded language support, and discipline-specific terminology across a broader range of African languages.
And perhaps the most uncomfortable question is this: must students once again protest to be heard? The 2015 moment demonstrated that institutional change often follows student pressure. If language remains a barrier, it raises concerns about whether dialogue alone is sufficient.
Decolonisation, if it is to mean anything, must be a dialogue, not only between institution and student, but between languages themselves. The question is not whether English will remain at Wits; it will. The question is whether students will continue to think in multiple languages but be recognised in only one language. Until students can be recognised in the languages in which they think, decolonisation remains a translation exercise, not a transformation. More fundamentally, it is whether Wits is willing to move from being a university that is merely in Africa to one that is truly of Africa.
FEATURED IMAGE: A student points toward an emergency assembly point at Wits, symbolising urgent questions around language, access, and transformation in higher education. Photo: Alice Dhlamini.
The inaugural Wits International Vocal & Chamber Music Festival begins on a powerful note, blending music, memory and meaning in a moving tribute to the youth of the Soweto Uprising.
The first-ever Wits International Vocal & Chamber Music Festival launched with a powerful opening concert at Seabrooke Music Hall.
The programme centred on Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, honouring the children of the 1976 Soweto Uprising.
Performers delivered a technically refined and emotionally gripping experience that set a high standard for the festival.
A quiet anticipation filled the Seabrooke Music Hall on Wits East Campus on April 22, as audiences gathered for the opening of the inaugural Wits International Vocal & Chamber Music Festival. What unfolded was not just a performance, but a deeply moving musical tribute rooted in history, memory and collective reflection.
Hosted by the Wits Music Department, the festival spans eight concerts running from April 22 to May 2 across various venues on campus. This festival is the first of its own at Wits hosted by the department. The opening set the tone with a powerful presentation by the Wits Music Department Choir, accompanied by pianist David Butlin and conducted by Head of Department Musa Nkuna.
The programme drew from Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, Op. 48, reimagined as a memorial for the children of the 1976 Soweto Uprising. Through seven movements, the performance carried a spiritual weight, each hymn a plea for rest, peace and refuge from suffering. The reinterpretation grounded the classical work in a distinctly South African context, bridging European composition with local history.
A picture of Charmaine Nkuna. Photo by: Sanele Sithole
Soprano Charmaine Nkuna, and bass Thato Morutle delivered standout solo performances, their voices cutting through the hall with clarity and emotional depth. Their presence added a personal dimension to the piece, elevating the performance from technically strong to profoundly affecting.
As the choir entered the stage dressed in black, the symbolism was immediate. The uniformed ensemble visually reinforced the tone of mourning and remembrance, aligning with the concert’s dedication to lives lost. What followed was a seamless performance marked by strong ensemble unity and precision — not a single note out of place.
The emotional impact resonated with the audience. First-year Film and Television student Luthando Skenjana described the experience simply: “It was an amazing performance; I quite enjoyed the show.”
For organisers, the festival represents more than a series of concerts. Choir chairperson Lesedi Masela, final-year Bachelor of Music student, described it as “a high-impact platform that brings together choral, chamber and orchestral performances within one integrated programme.”
Masela emphasised the significance of the festival’s timing, marking 50 years since the Soweto Uprising. “The opening concerts being requiems reflect that commemoration,” he said, adding that hosting performances across multiple venues transforms the festival into “a full-scale artistic ecosystem.”
That ambition is evident. Beyond musical excellence, the festival aims to create an immersive cultural experience — one that is intellectually engaging while remaining emotionally accessible. The opening concert achieved this balance, offering both technical sophistication and a deeply human narrative.
At its core, the performance was about young people remembering young people — a generational echo carried through music. It is this layering of meaning that makes the festival stand out, positioning it as both an artistic and commemorative space.
If opening day is anything to go by, the Wits International Vocal & Chamber Music Festival is not just an event to attend, but one to experience.
Vuvu Rating: 10/10
A picture of the choir. Photo by: Sanele Sithole
FEATURED IMAGE: A picture of the choir on stage. Photo by: Sanele Sithole
Street skate culture is alive and thriving in the heart of Jozi.
F City hosts a skate competition in Selby.
Young skaters flock to the event to show off their tricks.
Skate culture facilitates youth development and community building.
Picture of skater mid-trick. Photo: Jamie Ho.
Picture of skater mid-trick. Photo: Jamie Ho.
Picture of skater mid-trick. Photo: Jamie Ho.
Picture of skater mid-trick. Photo: Jamie Ho.
Picture of skater mid-trick. Photo: Jamie Ho.
Picture of skater mid-trick. Photo: Jamie Ho.
Picture of skater mid-trick. Photo: Jamie Ho.
On Saturday April 25, wheels were rolling and sneakers were skidding in Johannesburg’s inner-city as F City Market brought skateboarding to the streets of Selby.
The afternoon was filled with cheers as a group of young skaters from central Johannesburg crowded around a small wooden ramp, eager to showcase their skills. The prize: a brand new skateboard courtesy of Crispy Skateboards.
This was young Isheanesu Hove’s first day doing a double kickflip: a move which crowned him the winner of the competition. “Skating to me, it means life,” Hove says, proudly clutching his newly won board. “It inspires me.”
This event is one of many hosted by F City Market in collaboration with Crispy Skateboards to bring skating back to its roots. Joe Dludla and Rhandzi Rhay, two students who founded the movement, were spurred by the lack of skating events in Johannesburg.
With most events being larger-scale or enclosed in skate parks, Dludla and Rhay saw a need to create an alternative space on the streets of Braamfontein for the youth by the youth.
Street skating is central to what Dludla calls the “core culture of skateboarding,” an activity that isn’t limited to skate parks, but open on the streets and accessible to all. “It’s a very small niche scene, so we need to keep it alive,” he adds.
At its core, the space is dedicated to uplifting the youth and providing them with a platform to hone their skills. Each month, F City hosts a youth development mentorship programme in collaboration with Growing Alexandra Skate Club, which aims to cultivate growth and creativity among the youth of Jozi.
As this initiative is still relatively new, it is in desperate need of volunteers. Dludla and Rhay encourage anyone with a skillset to share their craft– from skateboarding to graffiti to music. “We’re trying to influence the next generation of kids,” Rhay says.
The event extends beyond just skating; it’s a culture rooted in creativity and artistic freedom. As co-founder of Crispy Skateboards, Kaelik Dullaart says, “It’s the music. It’s the aesthetic. It’s the attitude. It’s the community.”
Drawn together by a love for skating, the space has become more than just an event; it has become a family.
As the sun set, the kids departed as a group back to their homes in town; skateboards ablaze beneath their feet.
Picture of the young skateboarders on Webber Street. Photo: Jamie Ho.
FEATURED IMAGE: Picture of a skater suspended in the air mid-trick. Photo: Jamie Ho.
The Pretoria Correctional Service Museum displays a blood-stained cloth from a flogging and a wooden “whipping triangle” used for corporal punishment.
At the Gallows, 3,500 names are engraved on memorial slabs, including Solomon Mahlangu and the Vulindlela family, executed by the apartheid state.
I thought I was going on a class tour. At Kgoši Mampuru II, I realised I was walking into South Africa’s past.
We visited two museums that tell two sides of the same story. The first was the Pretoria Correctional Service Museum, which shows how the prison system was run. The second was the Gallows Memorial Museum, where 3,500 people were executed. I walked in as a student but I left carrying weight I didn’t expect.
The two museums work together. The Pretoria Correctional Service Museum shows the mechanics of control, how people were fed, clothed, worked, and punished. The Gallows shows the final price of that control, 3,500 lives ended by the state.
We began at the Pretoria Correctional Service Museum. Correctional officer Dimakatso welcomed us and explained that phones and cameras were not allowed inside, and then she guided us through the exhibits. We saw wood carvings and sculptures made by inmates.
The punishment displays were the most difficult part for me. A wooden “whipping triangle” showed where inmates were tied for corporal punishment, and stun belts were used to immobilise them. When I saw a white cloth stained with blood from a flogging, I gasped.
A contraband section held makeshift knives shaped from spoons and dagga pipes, which is why Dimakatso said metal dishes have been replaced with plastic. She added that inmates can study and work, although the pay is little. We ended the tour with a look at a replica of Nelson Mandela’s cell.
At the Gallows, we handed our devices before Mr Kgomo took over. His tone was firm and commanding, stating that we were privileged to be there. He showed us engraved memorial slabs with 3,500 names of the hanged, including political prisoners like Solomon Mahlangu and the Vulindlela family, and I kept asking myself how an entire family could be executed.
The first room we entered was a church beneath the hanging chamber. On execution days, bodies were lowered by 9am for families to view in closed coffins, and relatives were told “he’s no more.” I hate coffins, and my heart raced as I understood how easily dignity was stripped away.
We then climbed the 52 steps to the gallows where prisoners took their last walk. As we ascended past dark images and words on the walls, my heart pounded and I sighed with every step because the weight of what happened there felt physical.
At the top, photographs of the hanged made my eyes fill with tears that didn’t drop, and when I saw the seven ropes in the chamber my heart sank while Mr Kgomo described each stage of the process. I realised that living now is a privilege we take for granted.
We left in silence. Everyone was speechless.
As a journalism student, I cannot separate theory from place anymore. I walked the 52 steps. Visits like this should be compulsory for us, because we cannot report on justice or the law fairly if we do not face the past physically. I arrived curious but I left sad, shaken, and more responsible.
FEATURED IMAGE: A portrait of Khutso Ngwatoana. Photo: Alaistar Russell
Wits Journalism students step inside Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre, confronting the haunting legacy of South Africa’s penal history.
Wits Journalism students visited Kgosi Mampuru II prison and learned about inmate survival, punishment, and daily life behind bars.
They climbed the 52 steps to the gallows, reflecting on the country’s execution history and its human cost.
The gates at Kgosi Mampuru II don’t simply close, they announce an ending. It is a metallic finality that vibrates in your marrow, leaving an unshakable awareness of what it means to be confined, and the fragile privilege of walking free. Exactly at 10:42 am on April 15, 2026, 17 of us from the Wits Journalism programme stepped through that threshold. We traded lecture halls for a space defined by the physics of control. As a student journalist, I am trained to observe, but here, the walls watch you back. An involuntarily warning began to ring in my ears, an indirect message from the architecture itself, “Do not come here.”
Our tour guide, Dimakatso, unveiled a world of “jail language” and survival. She described “two full chickens”, prison slang for the two boiled eggs served with pap at 14: 00 pm which would be your last meal until the next day. She showed us how inmates creatively hollowed Sunlight soap to hide cell phones. In the era of AI, these inmates use primitive ingenuity to stay connected. Sitting on benches crafted by prisoners, I felt a sting of irony, for someone like me, only taught to build cardboard bridges at school, these prisoners learn to build from scratch to survive, and gain skills that might one day free them from that space.
The atmosphere turned clinical and cruel when Dimakatso introduced the “Triangle Step”. She described hot water-soaked wood being bent during a beating, making my body involuntary cringe. My mind flashed to the moment of impact, feeling the sting of a system that once relied on pain as its primary language. Hanging on the triangle step was a bloodstained cloth, an enduring reminder of punishment inflicted on the condemned. I cannot omit this, as it questions what I was never taught in high school. This history was deliberately left out, it sparked questions about justice, pain, and how history is curated.
Next, we moved to the gallows. Mr. Kgomo told us to “fasten our emotional seatbelts”, a fitting warning. We transitioned from the museum of survival to the tomb of execution. I stood before the names on the wall, thinking of Section 11 of the South African Constitution: the right to life. I felt a wave of relief; the 1996 abolition of the death penalty had ended this brutal form of justice. Yet, as we approach April 27, Freedom Day, the irony burns: this day marks our liberation, but these gallows mark how many never lived to see it. Yet, the past is not distant. Between 1902 and 1989, roughly 3,500 people were executed, a grim reminder of state-sanctioned brutality. As I ascended the 52 steps, I imagined faces, some praying, some screaming, others singing hymns, climbing those heavy stairs. By step 52, my chest felt like it was crushed, a tear slipped unnoticed, masking my professionalism.
At the top, the brutality became clinical, detached from emotion. I learned how a prisoner’s BMI (body mass index) was used to select the correct noose, and how a pulse after the fall meant the execution was not complete. We stood where Solomon Mahlangu, whose blood nourished the “tree of freedom”, once stood. As the gates hissed shut behind us, and warnings lingered, I became haunted. The 52 steps symbolise not only punishment but a society still grappling with its past, a past where thousands paid the ultimate price between 1902 and 1989. Is this reflection of the gallows? It is a mirror that confronts the dark architecture of consequence, forcing us to question the true weight of justice and the whispers of history that echo through these steps.
19 : 00 pm, execution time starts. Photo by: Emadul Islam Akash. (Pexels)
We celebrate Freedom Day on April 27, 2026, however, the 52 steps remind us that freedom was counted out in bodies long before it was counted in ballots.
FEATURED IMAGE: Journalism and Media Studies Honours students from Wits University enter Kgosi Mampuru II Management Area. Photo by: Alice Dhlamini.
As soon as my foot crosses the threshold, I am sucked into the cold, bleak walls of the gallows. Looming before me are my 52 last steps. In a single file, we follow the warden.
49.
50.
51.
With each footfall, the weight in my heart grows heavier. It’s like trudging through water, with my feet being pulled down deeper and deeper. Steadily, we approach that dreaded chamber of death.
Like a constant buzz of electricity, the air is charged with the crackle of violence. Hanging from the ceiling are nooses, dangling like serpents twisting and curling their vicious tails.
We line up alongside the gallows, necks craned; eyes widened at these troubling ropes. At our feet: a wooden trapdoor which can be opened at the pull of a lever. This rickety platform is the only thing standing between life and death: the final step before the drop.
The clock is ticking. As the warden makes his way across the room, I feel my chest constrict as if the ropes have twisted around my heart. The air is now so thick; my tongue feels like lead and my neck prickles with sweat. Time’s almost up. His hand reaches for the lever.
As we all surround that limp trap door, nobody makes a sound. I can still feel it settling all around me: that cold, deafening silence. Even as we depart from the gallows, it clings to me long after.
Drawing of the gallows in Kgosi Mampuru II prison. By: Jamie Ho.
It has been 32 years since the end of Apartheid, a period where 3 500 people were sentenced to death by the state. In the modern age, it has become concerningly easy to shrug off these injustices as a thing of the past, a forgotten by-gone.
In the gallows of Kgosi Mampuru II prison, however, history is anything but gone. It echoes through the halls, up the stairs, around the hanging rope: a lively, tangible pain that sends a jolt through your bones. It sits heavy in the air: the agony of men marching solemnly to their deaths. That violence bleeds from that pocket of history. It lives in that prison.
The day we visited the gallows, I left with a newfound understanding of the past: that just because it has passed does not mean that it is gone.
The freedom that we have today came at a hefty cost; it was built from bloodied death chambers, scavenged from towers of corpses, hacked from beating hearts that were stuffed in boxes.
It is anything but the past; it is alive, and it weaves itself indefinitely into the fabric of the present, informing the very freedom we have today. It lingers in the triumph of being able to walk freely on an open street. It sits in the warmth and laughter of a community braai. It pumps through the veins of a liberated nation.
Before Solomon Mahlangu was executed he said, “Tell my people that I love them and that they must continue to fight; my blood will nourish the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom.”
As we observe Freedom Day, we must remember the thousands of lives the fruits of our freedom are staked on. We cannot let their memories die in vain. It is our one duty: to honour their sacrifice and let the past mean more than just the past.
FEATURED IMAGE: A portrait of Jamie Ho. Photo: Alaistair Russel
Walking into The Gallows Museum at Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre, the first thing that hits you is not a sound, but the absence of it. We fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. It did not feel right to speak. The atmosphere was tense, sombre, and thick with a history that was never meant to be heard outside these walls. We were not just touring a building; we were retracing the final, mechanical minutes of 3500 lives.
The dehumanisation was in the details. The “procedure” began at 06:50 AM, and by 07:30 AM, it was over, fast and efficient. Life was extinguished with the punctuality of a business transaction. A wave of nausea hit me hearing how seven people were hanged at a time, their bodies later hosed down with a power washer, like equipment in a slaughterhouse, because the state could not be bothered to afford them individual dignity. They were shoved into coffins, and that coffin was shown to families for mere seconds to hide the trauma of the noose and then buried in unmarked graves. They did not just want these men dead; they wanted them erased.
It was a place designed for the mass production of death, a literal “human abattoir.” The ropes had metal rings to ensure the break was instantaneous, a cold, metallic “mercy” in a room that lacked a soul. If a pulse survived the drop, they were simply hoisted back up and hanged again. It was a loop of terror. Our guide explained that some in charge, like warden Christiaan Barnard, openly enjoyed the work because of how well it paid, even believing he would be forgiven because he was “just doing his job.” To keep the killings quiet, they even soundproofed the room to muffle the thunder of the trapdoors hitting the frame.
We climbed the 52 steps in the shadow of painted silhouettes, counting them one by one. I thought of the prisoners who would sing holy songs on their way up, their voices a haunting contrast to the “last request” they were offered at the top. It felt like a final, cruel joke to bark those requests in Afrikaans, a language many did not even understand, moments before they were led into the room where the ropes awaited. It was in this final room, the gallows, that I saw the plaque for a 22-year-old Solomon Mahlangu, barely younger than I am, who once stood on this same trapdoor.
This experience hit me with a force I did not expect. I realise now that we talk about “liberation” as a concept, but we rarely look at the apparatus that tried to crush it. Our democracy is not just built on grand speeches and signed documents; it is built on the silence of these men and the sacrifice of leaders like Solomon Mahlangu, whose words remain painted on these walls: “My blood will nourish the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom.” Standing where the hearse once sat, permanently waiting, I realised that as Freedom Day approaches, I carry the weight of those 52 steps with me.
We can never truly understand our present if we forget the system that tried so hard to wash this history away. I pray that the souls who passed within those walls have finally found the eternal rest and peace that was denied to them in life.
The Atlas of Uncertainty offers a profound perspective on African migration, redefining our understanding of belonging.
Atlas of Uncertainty opens at Wits Origins Centre.
Various artists, writers and researchers celebrated their work during the opening ceremony.
The exhibition holds significance in today’s divided society.
Picture of papier-mâché boat sculpture entitled ‘Mashuna and Hakuna nija’ by artist Onys Martin. Photo: Jamie Ho.
The Atlas of Uncertainty exhibition opened at the Wits Origins Centre on Saturday, April 18, inviting visitors to question the current agenda around migration, urbanisation and belonging in Africa.
From a paper-mâché boat constructed from receipts to a woven tapestry stitched with burlap, the exhibition offers a more humanising lens for viewing the global phenomenon of mobility: not as burdensome, but as inherent to humanity.
Rooted in three African cities, Johannesburg, Accra, and Nairobi, the Atlas looks beyond the borders that divide us. Migration researcher Loren B. Landau highlights that the current scholarship neglects to capture the complexities of Africa, thereby revealing a need to move “from the counting to the feeling; from the census to the senses.”
To understand the vast complexities that define the continent, the Atlas is not only working across borders, but across different media, disciplines, platforms and ways of thinking. Urban sociologist Caroline Wanjiku Kihato explains that this “lets different ways of knowing sit alongside one another, without forcing them into a single voice.”
The Atlas of Uncertainty is a powerful revision of how we understand African cities. It uproots mainstream narratives surrounding migration, opening the space up for uncomfortable yet necessary conversations.
Spatial practitioner, Carina Kanbi provides some insight into the actual making of the project and how its themes of migratory politics were mirrored over the course of its conception.
Going all the way back to 2023, when the project first began, she notes challenges faced by the artists working across borders, not only in physically transporting the works, but also in handling bureaucratic restrictions between countries. “The exhibition did not begin this morning,” she explains. “It very much began in transit.”
And staying true to this theme of mobility, the Atlas will remain a piece of art that will remain in perpetual movement. While it is on exhibition until July 3 at the Origins Centre, it is also planned to showcase in Accra and Nairobi in 2027.
Each piece of the Atlas reverberates with the passion of its creators. Each tassel holds weight.
Each shard aches with feeling. As the cracks of division deepen in our world, the value of this exhibit lies not only in its ability to challenge the status quo, but in its ability to reach where data and statistics cannot, to reconnect with our ability to be human.
Close-up of artwork titled ‘I am the Graffiti on the Cracked Wall‘ by Windybrow Arts Centre. Photo: Jamie Ho.Picture of ‘Strangers and Spaces’ by Austine Adika. Photo: Jamie Ho.Close-up of ‘A Map of Dreams and Realities’ by Billie McTernan. Photo: Jamie Ho.
FEATURED IMAGE: Picture of artwork titled ‘When We Travel, Where Do We Settle?” by Wezile Harmans. Photo: Jamie Ho.
Since her announcement as the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille has dominated national headlines. In this bonus episode of We Should Be Writing podcast, hosts Lulah Mapiye and Bonolo Mokonoto dissect a media meet-and-greet with the mayoral hopeful. From her extensive political résumé to her controversial public utterance, we examine why the Democratic Alliance has chosen Hellen Zille as their candidate for the 2027 local mayoral elections. Additionally, […]
