City to host teaching awards
THE NORTHERN Cape Teaching Awards, which recognises excellence in the teaching profession and the role teachers play in developing the future of the Province, will take place in Kimberley today.
The awards aims to raise awareness, understanding and appreciation for the contribution teachers make to education and development across the Northern Cape.
“Teaching is an obligation that falls on the shoulders of teachers – a resolve to take our future in our own hands and determine our own destiny as a nation,” provincial Department of Education spokesperson, Geoffrey van der Merwe, said yesterday.
The National Teaching Awards was conceptualised and launched in 2000 and in 2018 it entered its 18th year of implementation. Through extensive consultation, the scheme has been refined, sharpened, as well as broadened in terms of its frame and categories.
Awards will be presented to teachers in the following categories: Excellence in Primary School Teaching, Excellence in Primary School Leadership, Excellence in Secondary School Teaching, Excellence in Secondary School Leadership, Excellence in Grade R Teaching, Excellence in Inclusive Education and Special Needs Teaching, Excellence in ICT Enhanced Teaching, Lifetime Achievement Award, Excellence in Mathematics Teaching and Excellence in Science Teaching.
Through the National Teaching Awards the Department of Basic Education acknowledges and encourages dedicated and caring teachers in their efforts to develop each pupil as a citizen of a democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa.
“Through the Northern Cape Department of Education’s Provincial Teaching Awards, we are actualising the National Teaching Awards’ aims and objectives which are to, recognise and promote excellence in teaching performance so that our teachers feel valued by the system; honour dedicated, creative and effective teachers and schools which will encourage our teachers to go beyond the call of duty; encourage best practice in schools; and afford South Africans the opportunity to publicly say ‘thank you’ to all outstanding teams or individual teachers in schools,” Van der Merwe said.
“Action Plan 2019: Towards the Realisation of Schooling 2030, envisages the continuous improvement of teachers and their capabilities and who are confident in their profession. It also aims at attracting a new group of young, motivated and appropriately trained teachers to the teaching profession.
“It further envisages a school principal who ensures that quality teaching and learning takes place according to the national curriculum but who also understands his/her role as a leader whose responsibility is to promote harmony, creativity and sound ethic within the school community and beyond.”