EDUCBLOG

Where to for Provincial Education?  a publication from IDASA says South Africa’s provincial education departments have been reduced to provincial administrations, for reasons that include the powerful role national government plays in delivering education services.   It looks in detail at education spending and asks: Can we afford to maintain administrations that cannot possibly change the course of poor quality education and engineer a brighter future for our poor and deprived learners?  

     The book is available as a free download (pdf) from the IDASA website.

The Department of Basic Education has released the "Action Draft Plan to 2014: Towards the Realisation of Schooling 2025" and is calling for comments.   The document is also here.

Comments can be emailed to Mr P Njobe at Njobe.P at dbe.gove.za by no later than Friday 27 August 2010.  

From the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) comes summaries and links to two days of hearings on 28th July 2010 and 29th July 2010.  

 Summary of the hearings on the 28th July 2010:

Summary of the hearings held on 29th July 2010:

The Committee continued with its public hearings on access to and delivery of quality education in South Africa. Faithway Christian School, which was a poor and rural school dependent entirely upon fees to pay for its costs, faced many challenges yet had, for the past 12 years, achieved 100% matric pass rates.  It noted that the present curriculum was doing the learners a disservice, and could be improved by placing more emphasis on English as the language of instruction. Teachers were expected to do far too much administrative work. The school recommended that stronger emphasis needed to be placed on reading, writing and spelling. The frequent changes to prescribed textbooks were problematic in poor communities. It said that Government should look at a way of bridging the divide between wealthier schools and their poorer counterparts, possibly through co-option. Members asked what had resulted in the school’s success, especially given the challenges presented by the OBE system, whether the school catered only to English-speaking pupils, and how government-funding would then affect the school’s status.

Meredale Primary School faced challenges around overcrowding, lack of adequate and cohesive support from the Department of Education and students having to have Afrikaans as a subject. In order to deal with bullying within classrooms, especially at Grade 1 where the ages of pupils ranged from five to eight years, the school separated learners. It recommended that schools should also be allowed to appoint the teachers they felt were best for the position. Members asked for comments on the experiences around inclusive education, the process around the employment of teachers, and the necessity for more remedial classes.

The Siyahamba Foundation for Academic Excellence had done research which showed that learners were not being taught learning skills. This Foundation had therefore released both a learner’s manual and a teacher’s manual, which emphasised aspects such as developing a positive belief system, improving memory, effective mind management, improving reading and writing skills, reducing anxiety and managing stress. Members asked if the success of this book was proven, whether the focus was on generic learning skills or was subject specific, whether teachers were currently trained at university in different learning theories and whether a similar book would be available for younger learners.

Projects Abroad noted that research conducted at disadvantaged schools in the Western Cape had noted a number of challenges, which included inadequate resources, social ills, including gangsterism and substance abuse, forced promotion of learners, and lack of technical-skills training for learners. Problems with the Outcomes Based Education system included lack of standardisation of knowledge, the overwhelming administrative workload placed on teachers, unrealistic timeframes within which to teach content, and problems arising from inclusive learning. There was also a poor relationship between the Department of Education and schools and educators. Projects Abroad recommended better consultation with educators, improving working relationships, replacing or revising the OBE system, the need for constant re-training and personal development of teachers, creating technical schools, the re-introduction of sports and creative subjects, creating well-resourced libraries, better learner safety and an independent school inspectorate. Members asked how many schools had been interviewed, where they were situated, why Department of Education officials were not interviewed during this research and whether there was not a need to look at different models for technical skills.

The latest summary, documentation and audio recording of the public hearing held in "Access to Education for all" is available from the Parliamentary Monitoring Group's website.   

This meeting was held on 27th July 2010.

Summary:

In the Committee’s public hearings into access for all, Leaders in Learning submitted that the current crisis in education was the result of the failure of teacher training institutions to address the process of learning and the lack of indication from curricula as to how best to implement the relevant content. The whole-brain teaching and learning approach needed to be adopted in order to redress this. To this end Leaders in Learning would draw up a user-friendly manual which, after consultation with various expert teachers, would be distributed to all schools. A model lesson recorded on a Digital Versatile Disc would also, when ready, be distributed to all schools.

Members asked whether the curricula at tertiary training facilities of universities provided for this approach, whether there were international examples of this approach forming part of teacher training, and whether this approach tried to optimise the learning potential of all learners.

The General Motors South Africa Foundation called for the decentralisation of district offices and the creation of circuit teams. This would bridge the divide between office-based officials and schools and their needs. The Foundation had, in 2001, initiated a project with the Eastern Cape Provincial Education Department which looked at putting together a more effective district office system. Though not implemented in the Eastern Cape, it had been adopted by district offices in the Western Cape which had, as a result of doing this, yielded favourable results. The make-up and operations of these circuit teams were informed by the needs of the particular schools, as opposed to the current model which worked via a top-down approach. The National Department of Education should establish a task team to investigate the possibility of the introduction of circuit teams in all 81 districts.
 
Members asked how easy it was to implement the circuit teams, especially in relation to cost, and personnel, how long the pilot project had been running and when its results were expected, and how this concept would affect employment methods.

Grahamstown Amasango Career School outlined how the school for street children was run and some of the challenges facing the school. Drop-out rates were aggravated by factors such as overcrowding, drug abuse and teenage pregnancy and HIV/AIDS; however, drop-outs were allowed to re-enter. The School called for vocational education for over-aged learners in primary schools who were not making exceptional academic progress. It noted that Basic Education needed to take cognizance of the fact that there were many thousands of broken, hurt, disturbed children who did not “fit” into mainstream education or any of the traditional special needs categories. Many of these children were street children, others just sat at home, others lived off city dumpsites and others were expected to act as shepherds and herdsmen. Others were prostitutes and drug runners. Yet these young people had rights to appropriate care and education. Grahamstown Amasango Career School enabled such children to re-enter the education system and in many cases to return to mainstream education in Grade 8. Five had passed Matric. Despite a 65% unemployment rate in Grahamstown, several former street children were in full-time jobs.

Members asked whether there was any vocational training for those 18 years and older, how many teachers there were at the school, how the learning of those children who constantly left and returned was managed, whether the causes for children’s becoming street children were dealt with, whether there were any statistics on how many learners dropped out as a result of learning barriers, how this school’s operational model could move to other areas, and how the school was funded.

The North West University submitted that, as the basis for all reading and writing was laid in the foundation phase, it was necessary to ensure that learners could read with comprehension during their first years at school. Teachers should, to this end, teach high-frequency words and phonics. List of these words and phonics (in the relevant language) should be distributed to teachers as it had been found that schools at which high-frequency words were taught saw greater reading with comprehension by learners than those that did not.

Members asked no questions orally since the meeting was adjourned at the end of the University’s submission.