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INPUT TO PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON BASIC EDUCATION. PUBLIC HEARINGS ON DELIVERY OF QUALITY EDUCATION AND ACCESS TO EDUCATION.
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INPUT TO PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON BASIC EDUCATION PUBLIC HEARINGS ON DELIVERY OF QUALITY EDUCATION AND ACCESS TO EDUCATION
“If children come to us from strong, healthy families, it makes our task much easier, If they do not come to us from strong, healthy families, it makes our task more important.”
BACKGROUND • Education and Training are central activities of our society. • They are of vital interest to every family and to the health and prosperity of our national economy • The government’s policy for education and training is therefore a matter of national importance second to none. • White Paper on Educ & Training • Notice 196 of 1995
Continued • “South Africa has never had a truly national system of education and training, and it does not have one yet” This policy document describes the process of transformation in education and training which will bring into being a system serving all our people, our new democracy, and our new RDP.”
Continued • It is essential for us to build a system of education and training with which all our people can identify because it serves their needs and interests. • The curriculum, teaching methods and textbooks at all levels and in all programmes of education and training, should encourage independent and critical thought, the capacity to question, enquire, reason, weigh evidence and form judgments, achieve understanding, recognise the provisional and incomplete nature of most human knowledge, and communicate clearly…
Teacher Development • At the senior secondary school level - where the graduate teacher is essential - the need will not be met so adequately. In spite of university expansion, the graduate is not finding his way into teaching because of the many other openings which are now available to him. This will be a continuing problem, and for this reason it will be necessary to maintain the small cadre of White teachers (±900 in all) who function at this level, and in • our training schools and technical schools and colleges. It is of the utmost importance that, faced with these problems, teachers should be helped to do the best they possibly can in the secondary schools. Therefore they are • backed up by an intensive in-service training system, based on a permanent centre at Mamelodi, near Pretoria. The work of this centre has proved to be so effective that it is hoped to develop similar centres for the larger homeland • education departments - plans for the Ciskei and KwaZulu are well advanced. • (Department of Bantu Education, Pretoria • K. B. HARTSHORNE, Director of Education Planning • Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the South African Nutrition • Society. held in Pretoria on 6 - 8 September 1973)
NORMS AND STANDARD FOR EDUCATORS • Learning mediator • Interpreter and designer of learning programme • Leader, administrator and manager • Scholar, researcher and lifelong learner • Community, citizenship and pastoral role • Assessor • Learning area/ subject /discipline/phase specialist
Recommendations • A residential Institute in the absence of teacher training college for educators is hereby recommended where one week out of 41 teaching and learning weeks educators can attend for upgrading, training, sharing as well as professional development in all aspects.
Managerial Capacity at School • Principals are to be put through a training/ mentorship programme on all aspects of management • Every principals to be given specific training on aspects and on a three year cycle evaluate their progress.
Orientating Schools towards Specialisation • Only schools with more than 720 learners to offer three packages or schools with less than 350 learners should offer one “package” the compulsory subjects ( Home language, First additional language, LO) and a choice of either mathematics or Mathematical literacy. The remaining three subjects should be spread across the other learning fields with the school offering one subject from three selected fields; i.e Life Sciences, Accounting and History. This will ensure that learners in smaller schools receive a “general”, balanced education.
Recomendations • Schools within a ward should be merged and allow resources to be in one centre and establish quality by providing that school with all necessary resources. • If it need be learners can be bussed to that centralised school. Educators to be provided with descent places of living.
Geographic Location • For the purposes of understanding the above, I will merge this issue with FET Colleges. According to the vision of the Government the FET Colleges were establish in order to equip learners with technical skills like Plumbing, Metal work, mechanics electrical work etc. Learners who are not gifted academically are forced by parents to do grade 10 – 12 • which is academic
Geographic Location Cont. • Recommendations: • FET colleges are brought closer to the community as much as possible especially rural areas. This can be done by merging small high schools in these areas and only improve the infrastructure i.e. put resources for skills to be trained for. Motor mechanics, plumbing electrical, welding,spraypaintingetc.. This will be a further strengthening of the vision of this government to develop rural areas. Bringing water, sanitation and electricity will be done by these students in their apprenticeship or practical.
Language Barrier Recommendations • That examination papers are available in Afrikaans and English. All that can be done is to make each province decide which African language is spoken by the majority of learners and have papers available in English, Afrikaans and that one identified African language
Recommendations continued • If the status quo remains that English and Afrikaans remain dominant choice of LOLT then these languages must be supported through the provision of : • Appropriate text • Plentiful, appropriate supplementary readers for all grades so that all learners have daily opportunities for reading for pleasure in private/ non teaching environments
Homeless Children/ OrphansRecommendations • Farm schools, one teacher schools need to be centralized, placed at school with boarding facilities and the state provide free education by so doing reasonable equal, free and quality education may be provided
Values in EducationRecommendation • Contribution made through SAHP ( South African History Project) very minimal because schools continue to phase out history in their school curriculum. • Phasing out history is tantamount to national suicide as : Tolerance, race relations, nation building, human rights cannot be realized when we do not share common history and common destiny
COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE • The constitution of the country makes it compulsory for learners to undergo general education up to grade 9. • The dept should consider appointing attendance officers who will monitor and supervise learners in each designated community. • This exercise will bear fruit in future when criminal activity is reduced and the country free and safe for all
“ Education, after all, is about giving children a reason to hope, a reason to dream, a reason to live”
REFERENCES • Constitution of the RSA Act 108 of 1996 • National Education Policy Act no 27 of 1996 • South African Schools Act no 84 of 1996 • Norms and Standards for educators 1998. • Education Convention Declaration 2002. • White Paper on Education and Training Notice 196 of 1995. • Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the South African Nutrition Society. held in Pretoria on 6 - 8 September 1973)
