Naptosa opposes compulsory history
The National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) is opposed to the proposal to make history a compulsory subject for Grades 10, 11 and 12. Basil Manuel, Naptosa’s national executive director, said this to the George Herald at the 12th Naptosa Western Cape Provincial conference held at
Fancourt last weekend.
“Naptosa believes that we must be Africanising our history, it must have an Afrocentric approach,” said Manuel. Naptosa is opposed to history replacing
Life Orientation (LO) in the senior grades. “We have just heard that HIV/AIDS has increased amongst high school learners. We should rather strengthen LO to develop a moral standard amongst learners.”
The question of experienced teachers taking retrenchment packages is being made more of in the press than it is in reality, said Manuel. “It hardly makes sense to replace older, more experienced people with necessarily only younger people. We acknowledge that we must create jobs for younger teachers, but not at the
expense of experience.”
Keynote speaker Brian Schreuder, head of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), said the challenge facing the profession is that it must prepare learners who are going into a world that they will have to manage. “Today’s learners will have to function in a job environment where the majority of jobs do not currently exist. We as the older generation don’t know exactly what that is going to be, yet we have to prepare kids adequately for the future.”
Schreuder said that the huge demand for places at schools in the Southern Cape is an enormous problem that requires very careful planning.
“The WCED is reflecting on a five-year plan to identify the strategic priorities for the department. Technical school education, which has regressed in the last few years, will have to be re-energised, and this includes an increase in funding to bring these schools on par with the demand.”
The number of learners in Western Cape schools has grown by 25 000 in 2018 and between 18 000 and 20 000 in the preceding five years.
“The funding from National Government is not arriving as fast as the learners are arriving.
The consequence is that the department’s budget is under tremendous pressure, resulting in the number of learners per class increasing to a point where teaching is very challenging.” The new high school in Thembalethu that will open shortly will hopefully ease the pressure on the learner numbers per class in the George area, which should result in improved education.
A future-focused education must have a far better balance of the skills of the 21st century by creating a balance between knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that is essential in an ever-changing environment, said Schreuder.