The conference comes weeks after President Cyril Ramaphosa told parliament his government is working to provide two years go pre-school education to better equip young South Africans for 21st centre challenges.

Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga welcomed more than 400 educationist and policy makers from a score of African, European and American countries to the Africa Play conference.

They were clearly delighted by a rousing  musical opening before going into three days of intensive workshops.

The conference is co-hosted by the Department of Basic Education, the LEGO institute, the United Nations Children’s Fund UNESCO and the Association For The Development Of Education In Africa.

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The Maasai say they’d rather die than be moved off their ancestral land.

Tanzanian authorities say the parcel of 1 500 km2 they’re trying to clear in the Serengeti reserve falls on the Wildebeest migration route and it thus vital to conservation.

They say it cannot support the people and cattle settled there.

However the Maasai say they don’t trust the government which started four years ago selling hunting concessions on land around the game reserve to the Dubai royal family.

Clad in their traditional red blankets and beads, the Maasai have also gone to court to recover land they claim which has been sold by the government to a US safari company.

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Their job is complicated by the Ethiopian authorities confiscating the planes and computer tables from the aviators

The vintage planes landed in Gambella near Ethiopia’s border with South Sudan.

The Ethiopian authorities kept them there, preventing them from going to their hotels.

Britain’s Foreign Office is talking to other embassies and negotiating on their behalf.

The pilots are from 10 different countries.

They include husband-and-wife teams, fathers and daughters and entire families trying  to fly more than 13 000 kms  down Africa in old aircraft that were designed for short-haul flights.

They’re planning to cross 10 countries end up in Cape Town mid-December.

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