Quality is at the heart of teacher education, says DHET Chief Director Dr Whitfield Green
Teacher education must be able to ensure the right number of high quality new teachers are produced - at present there is high demand for specific kinds of teachers
More than R340-million in funding since 2011 from the European Union (EU) has made it possible to strengthen the quality of teaching, learning and research in South Africa, says Dr Whitfield Green, the Chief Director, Teaching, Learning and Research Development in the Department of Higher Education and Training.
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian, he said the funding support from the EU has made it possible for the academics co-ordinating the projects to use their knowledge and expertise in creative ways to strengthen the quality of teaching, learning and research in South Africa.
He said the DHET gratefully acknowledges the commitment and passion for excellence that has been evident in engagements with the officials from the EU.
Green said the partnership between the EU and the DHET goes a long way back. “The EU has a long partnership with the DHET. The teacher education partnership goes back to around 2008 and 2009, when we had conversations about the next allocation of funding for education. We conceived a large programme on primary teacher education, and part of it was focused on foundation phase teacher education,” said Green.
“The EU initially allocated funding to the DHET to the tune of R141-million to strengthen foundation phase teacher education and grow universities offering African languages. Today, at least 21 universities ended up offering foundation phase programmes. A further agreement to continue support for strengthening teacher education was reached and a further R200m was made to strengthen teacher education across a range of sub-sectors. Its a long standing relationship that has enabled us to strengthen teacher education in the country.” Today at least 21 universities are offering foundation phase programmes.
Green said the Teaching and Learning Development Capacity Improvement Programme (TLDCIP) — under the DHET’S Director-general and managed by the Chief Directorate for Teaching, Learning and Research Development — consists of five projects, all focused on improving teacher education.
While some people would think that this focus is limited to school teachers, Green clarified that there are several other beneficiaries of the programme, including sub-sectors such as ECD, basic education, the TVET and CET college sector and university teaching and learning.
The TLDCIP is a five-year programme implemented by the DHET. It is part of the Teaching and Learning Development Sector Reform Contract (TLDSRC), conceptualised within the framework of the South African-european Union Multiannual Indicative Programme 2014-2020, as a response to specific developmental needs within the education, training and innovation sector.
The multiannual indicative programme’s overall objective is to “assist the government in transforming the education, training and innovation system so that it contributes to
the improved economic performance of the country”.
Green said conceptual model for the TLDCIP works from the premise that research traverses all the other areas of the programme.
“Research enables the Department and other partners to gather information about the system: what is happening in the system, teacher supply and demand, interaction with the universities in relation to teacher education, and what are the pressures. During summits and conferences we have focused on such issues in an attempt to understand how to strengthen teacher education, including numeracy and literacy, teaching practices and building programmes for ECD,” said Green.
“We have grown teacher graduates in the last 10 years through the programme. In 2008 we had about 6 000 graduates coming out. That has increased. In 10 years, certainly many more teachers are coming out in terms of the supply and demand gap. But are we producing enough teachers with the right teaching subjects such as maths, science and language teachers? It’s an issue of relative demand. A study we did with Stellenbosch University is confirming that at this point in time absolute demand is addressed, but that relative demand — demand for teachers with specific sector, phase and subject specialisations — remains. Absolute demand is also likely to increase again as we approach 2030, and many more teachers reach retirement age.”
Green said there is huge demand for specific kinds of teachers e.g. Maths Teachers. “We have to get the right kind of specialisation teachers. We have to get the issue of relative demand right. All graduates are employable. However, we have seen, while mapping graduates with the employment PERSAL (Human Resource, Personnel & Salary System), there is a 60% uptake of graduates one year after graduation. There’s 40% not accounted for. We need to investigate where do they end up, unemployed — or end up in other jobs, or the private sector, or do they emigrate and teach elsewhere? That’s what we would like to know,” said Green.
To all intents and purposes, the reports on the TLDCIP show that it is succeeding, primarily due to the sustainability built into the programme,
according to Green.
“In terms of funding … we have funded new lecturers to do Master’s and Phds, and once those programmes are completed, these staff become the lecturers at these institutions,” said Green.
“We are also ensuring sustainability through engaging our partners in teacher education, such as the EU, for continued support. The EU has been an amazing partner. Teacher education has been significantly strengthened in the country, in part through the support of the EU.”
He believes that there is a strong interdependency between the Department of Basic Education and the DHET for teacher education.
“Quality is at the heart of teacher education. Quality is influenced by the size, shape and substance of the teacher education system,” according to Green.
He emphasised that the TLDCIP is a specific intervention to strengthen:
a) ECD educator development b) Primary teacher education c) Inclusive and special needs teacher education; and d) Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Community Education and Training (CET) college lecturer education.
Green leads the work of the Department in respect of:
• Supporting the development of a universitybased teacher education system that is able to produce sufficient numbers of high quality teachers for all education sub-sectors, including pre-schooling, schooling and post-schooling.
• Developing, implementing and monitoring policy and programmes to support capacity development at universities for advancing student success, staff development and programme/curriculum development, including through management and oversight of the Department’s University Capacity Development Programme.
• Development of a co-ordinated system for the management of international postgraduate scholarship partnerships.