The transformation of education begins with teachers. A shortage of quality teachers and the consequent ongoing delivery of poor educational outcomes are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the challenges facing basic education in South Africa.

The crisis looks set to worsen in the years ahead given that more than half of the current teacher population is over the age of 55 and will soon be heading for retirement, notes School-Days, a fundraising programme.

We’re neither creating attractive career opportunities for student teachers nor graduating a sufficient number of teachers each year, it said.

Some 15,000 new teachers currently graduate each year, and the need is for 25,000 annually in order to maintain an effective teacher-pupil ratio. However, between 18 000 and 22 000 teachers leave the profession each year, either due to retirement or to switch professions, often in search of more lucrative income.

Of particular concern is the dire shortage of specialist maths, science, technology and African language teachers and an over-supply of teachers in other areas. The shortage of specialist teachers is widely felt, said School-Days.

“Our children don’t fare much better when it comes to reading for meaning with a 2016 literacy study revealing that 78% of grade 4 learners were not able to read for meaning.”

There has been enough talk about how dismal the results are, and this is despite the fact that South Africa’s basic education sector is sufficiently funded, at least comparable to equivalent-sized economies, spending around 6% of GDP on education.

Why, then, do we have such a huge problem?

Paul Esterhuizen, CEO of School-Days, believes it’s time to raise the bar and ensure the education sector starts focusing on attracting higher-quality candidates.

“Recent reports indicate that only one-fifth of Bachelor of Education students achieved more than 50% for maths in matric. Another, albeit older, study found that most grade 3 teachers struggled to achieve 50% in literacy and mathematics assessments designed for grade 6 learners.

“Given these alarming statistics, it should not be any surprise that, as a country, we struggle with poor educational outcomes.”

He said we’re doing the children of South Africa a disservice and that every child deserves access to quality education that positions them to find meaningful work as an adult.

“As a country, we need to be making an urgent and concerted effort to improve education delivery standards because this impacts us all. Poor educational outcomes are a contributing factor to lacklustre GDP growth, which in turn exacerbates unemployment, poverty and inequality.”

Esterhuizen believes businesses may have some of the solutions required to save basic education in South Africa. “There are already a number of encouraging examples of previously poor performing schools that are showing that with the right interventions, learner results improve.

“Consider, for example, advertising and communications group Joe Public United’s ‘One School at a Time’ initiative that has seen considerable success. And the likes of Kagiso Shanduka Trust, the Adopt-a-School Foundation and non-profit Funda Wanda have initiated and delivered on successful partnerships with provincial education departments.”

The School-Days CEO believes it’s time to draw the business sector in to partner with schools and fund whole school development, attract more student teachers as interns at schools and do this on a platform that enables sustainability.

“The end goal has to be to continue to upskill our teachers and keep them in the teaching profession,” he said.

“Given the long-term impact of education on the economy, we need urgent interventions to improve educational outcomes. This will require the political will to implement meaningful reforms, potentially rethinking how education is delivered and moving the focus away from merely covering a prescribed curriculum to encouraging mastery of that curriculum.

“We need to be attracting high-quality candidates to the teaching profession and rethink how we train and support our teachers. We need to find ways to alleviate pressure on over-subscribed schools in the public sector and harness the power of technology to deliver quality education at scale.”

Over-crowded classrooms in many government schools prompt the need for parents to consider private education with independent education providers who have been positioning themselves to bridge the gap in the market for more affordable private schooling.

For many families, however, private education is not affordable.

Esterhuizen established School Days to help families afford school fees. Based on reward and incentive programme principles that assist parents and members of the public to pay school fees, either at their own or at a disadvantaged school, the programme incentivises members to shop with partner merchants to earn Edu-Time Points (ETPs) while still earning their normal retailer loyalty points. ETPs can be donated to a chosen beneficiary or used to pay a child’s school, college or university fees.

Business Tech

IT has been seven years since students in South Africa began protesting in a bid to “Africanise” the country’s university curricula. They viewed what they were learning as too neoliberal – characterised by Western values pushing the marketisation of education. They wanted universities to become more relevant to students in an African country and more connected to their own lives.

The students’ calls propelled “decolonisation” to the forefront of national (and even international) debate. Decolonisation in the university context involves dismantling the institutional practices and policies that uphold white supremacist, Western values. Since then there have been various initiatives at most of the country’s 26 public universities designed to change what students learn and how.

Every academic has their own opinion and their own approach. Mine, as a university educator who lectures future teachers, has been to adopt a teaching-learning approach called defamiliarisation.

The idea of defamiliarisation was coined by Russian literary theorist Viktor Shklovsky. It is a process of looking at things differently through art, poetry, or film so that you don’t see them automatically; Shklovsky said that you could look at something you know several times without really analysing it.

I have researched and used defamiliarisation in my teaching since 2015, finding it a good place to contribute towards disrupting the sort of neoliberal curriculum student protesters opposed. If a curriculum doesn’t consider the humanistic side of learning, the system and institution can treat students as a form of human capital. That ultimately changes education from a public good to a commodity.

By approaching my classes using defamiliarisation, I have been able to help students think beyond the usual stories about history. Crucially, they have been put in charge of their learning. In this way, education is shored up as a public good.

A space to speak openly

So, what does defamiliarisation look like in practise? One example is an activity a colleague and I designed: we asked a group of students, as part of a lesson, to draw how they saw themselves and how they felt about being taught in English at the university. While English is widely spoken in South Africa, most of our students speak isiXhosa as their first language.

Even though the question was about the university, many of the students’ drawn answers were about society and their communities in reference to the university. These examples showed that, for these students, the community and the university are not separate. The question seemed to bring up deeper issues that neither the students nor I were aware of at the time.

For example, one of the students I talked to about her drawing creatively explained how her feelings were connected to her beliefs, culture, and context pertaining to the dominant and gendered power relations in her community, and at the school she had attended.

She drew two portraits of herself: on the left, a false representation at the school she attended, depicting the aesthetic beauty and success that came with being able to speak English fluently and with excellent grades; on the right, a portrait of her dormant natural beauty that held on to her culture and true identity.

Her drawing showed how she saw herself and how she thought the rest of society saw her. Her drawing showed her race, language, culture, gender, and a false representation of who she was in her school environment.

The student said that in her community, people often asked her about her race because she spoke in a dialect that she may have picked up at a former Model C (whites only during apartheid) school, and that was often associated with “white culture” in her community.

The defamiliarisation approach allowed this student to make her peers and me aware of her socio-cultural context and, more importantly, the challenges and subtleties of her identity and how she felt about them. By doing this activity, she, like many of her peers, could talk about herself creatively and effectively.

This approach developed students’ openness, compassion, sympathy and responsibility.

You could say that defamiliarisation gave the students the freedom to become their own narrators. It also allowed them to understand what their peers were going through and show compassion for them around instances of marginalisation in society. This, in my opinion, is crucial for aspiring educators to fully comprehend the range of experiences and viewpoints held by learners from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds.

Educators benefit, too

I believe this kind of teaching was valuable and essential to assist students in developing the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviours needed for critical global citizenship. It allowed them to communicate openly about victimisation and unjust treatment in South Africa.

Even though in some instances it made them feel uncomfortable, defamiliarisation was met with mostly favourable reactions from students. It helped them to open up about the challenges in their own lives. And I still use the approach today, mostly through the medium of film. For instance, I showed the movie Krotoa to a different class. It examines the impact of Dutch colonisation on the culture and identity of the indigenous Khoi people of the Cape in the 17th century.

Defamiliarisation helps educators, too. I have reflected on my role as a university lecturer and, frankly, to question aspects of my teaching that seem dominant and obvious to my students but are just habitual to me. Learning about my students’ real-life experiences and sentiments helped me empathise with them and value their individuality. It helped us to connect in a meaningful way as equals.

Using this approach is a way for academics to return to the basics. That’s crucial if universities are to offer a curriculum that centres students’ needs as the primary focus of learning.

THE CONVERSATION

HIGHER Education, Science and Innovation Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, has disputed a Sunday newspaper report claiming he requested Parliament keep a Forensic Investigation Report on the National Skills Fund’s (NSF) under wraps.

“I never wanted to keep this report under wraps, but all that I requested was for the Standing Committee on Public Account (SCOPA) to treat this report in terms of rule 189 of the National Assembly, especially sub-rule (1) (c) read with sub rule (4) (a) until all processes before the law enforcement agencies and internal departmental disciplinary processes are concluded,” Nzimande said.

He had appointed a forensic investigation company to conduct a full-scale forensic investigation into the financial affairs of the NSF after amounts of just under R5 billion could not be properly accounted for over two financial years.

The Minister also appointed a Ministerial Task Team (MTT) to conduct a strategic review of the NSF, its general operations and its efficiency and relevance with regards to the national skills priorities of the country.

Nzimande said both these appointments were meant to ensure the NSF accounts for the resources allocated to it and deal with instances of maladministration and corruption at the NSF.

“Both the reports were submitted to me, and we have begun in earnest the process of implementing the recommendations of both these reports,” the Minister said.

The Department of Higher Education and Training also opened a case at the Pretoria Central Police Station on 3 October 2022.

“Now that a police case has been opened and legal processes are underway, all the implicated individuals inside and outside the department, including companies who might have benefited irregularly on the resources of the National Skills Funding, will face the full might of the law,” Nzimande said.

He added that the department has already commenced engaging the Hawks and other law enforcement agencies, including initiating internal departmental disciplinary processes to ensure that this process in concluded speedily.

“This is the reason we requested SCOPA to treat this report as confidential until these processes are finalised and the relevant people informed, in terms of due process. I however must indicate that as a department we respect the SCOPA decision not to accede to our request.

“I have nothing to hide, but I have a duty, on my part, to follow due process in implementing the recommendations of the forensic investigation. We will implement these recommendations to the letter,” Nzimande said.
SA NEWS

HIGHER Education, Science and Innovation Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, has disputed a Sunday newspaper report claiming he requested Parliament keep a Forensic Investigation Report on the National Skills Fund’s (NSF) under wraps.

“I never wanted to keep this report under wraps, but all that I requested was for the Standing Committee on Public Account (SCOPA) to treat this report in terms of rule 189 of the National Assembly, especially sub-rule (1) (c) read with sub rule (4) (a) until all processes before the law enforcement agencies and internal departmental disciplinary processes are concluded,” Nzimande said.

He had appointed a forensic investigation company to conduct a full-scale forensic investigation into the financial affairs of the NSF after amounts of just under R5 billion could not be properly accounted for over two financial years.

The Minister also appointed a Ministerial Task Team (MTT) to conduct a strategic review of the NSF, its general operations and its efficiency and relevance with regards to the national skills priorities of the country.

Nzimande said both these appointments were meant to ensure the NSF accounts for the resources allocated to it and deal with instances of maladministration and corruption at the NSF.

“Both the reports were submitted to me, and we have begun in earnest the process of implementing the recommendations of both these reports,” the Minister said.

The Department of Higher Education and Training also opened a case at the Pretoria Central Police Station on 3 October 2022.

“Now that a police case has been opened and legal processes are underway, all the implicated individuals inside and outside the department, including companies who might have benefited irregularly on the resources of the National Skills Funding, will face the full might of the law,” Nzimande said.

He added that the department has already commenced engaging the Hawks and other law enforcement agencies, including initiating internal departmental disciplinary processes to ensure that this process in concluded speedily.

“This is the reason we requested SCOPA to treat this report as confidential until these processes are finalised and the relevant people informed, in terms of due process. I however must indicate that as a department we respect the SCOPA decision not to accede to our request.

“I have nothing to hide, but I have a duty, on my part, to follow due process in implementing the recommendations of the forensic investigation. We will implement these recommendations to the letter,” Nzimande said.
SA NEWS

HIGHER Education, Science and Innovation Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, has disputed a Sunday newspaper report claiming he requested Parliament keep a Forensic Investigation Report on the National Skills Fund’s (NSF) under wraps.

“I never wanted to keep this report under wraps, but all that I requested was for the Standing Committee on Public Account (SCOPA) to treat this report in terms of rule 189 of the National Assembly, especially sub-rule (1) (c) read with sub rule (4) (a) until all processes before the law enforcement agencies and internal departmental disciplinary processes are concluded,” Nzimande said.

He had appointed a forensic investigation company to conduct a full-scale forensic investigation into the financial affairs of the NSF after amounts of just under R5 billion could not be properly accounted for over two financial years.

The Minister also appointed a Ministerial Task Team (MTT) to conduct a strategic review of the NSF, its general operations and its efficiency and relevance with regards to the national skills priorities of the country.

Nzimande said both these appointments were meant to ensure the NSF accounts for the resources allocated to it and deal with instances of maladministration and corruption at the NSF.

“Both the reports were submitted to me, and we have begun in earnest the process of implementing the recommendations of both these reports,” the Minister said.

The Department of Higher Education and Training also opened a case at the Pretoria Central Police Station on 3 October 2022.

“Now that a police case has been opened and legal processes are underway, all the implicated individuals inside and outside the department, including companies who might have benefited irregularly on the resources of the National Skills Funding, will face the full might of the law,” Nzimande said.

He added that the department has already commenced engaging the Hawks and other law enforcement agencies, including initiating internal departmental disciplinary processes to ensure that this process in concluded speedily.

“This is the reason we requested SCOPA to treat this report as confidential until these processes are finalised and the relevant people informed, in terms of due process. I however must indicate that as a department we respect the SCOPA decision not to accede to our request.

“I have nothing to hide, but I have a duty, on my part, to follow due process in implementing the recommendations of the forensic investigation. We will implement these recommendations to the letter,” Nzimande said.

SA NEWS

WENDY MOTHATA

THE South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) has indicated that it’s willing to accept the government’s offer of a 3% wage increase in the public service wage talks. Sadtu said it will not join the public servants’ strike action and it will make an announcement on Monday on the matter when it concludes its national council meeting.

This despite a deadlock with other unions over wage negotiations with the government.

Last week, Sadtu president Magope Maphila said most members were in support of the revised offer of 3% tabled recently at the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) by the department of public service and administration.
Sadtu has a membership of about 260,000.

Despite the prevailing difficult fiscal position, the government believes the 3% salary increase offer to
public servants is ‘generous’.

This is the view of the Acting Minister of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), Thulas Nxesi, and Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana.

The unions demanded a 10% wage increase when negotiations began in May but trimmed the figure down to 6.5% to match the headline inflation rate the Reserve Bank has forecast for 2022.

The government presented a revised and improved offer on the baseline of 2% plus the non-pensionable cash gratuity, amounting to an average of 4.5% of the R20.5 billion that is on the budget.

“The 2% amounted to an additional R8.9 billion over and above the budgeted of R20.5 billion, costing the government a total of R29.5 billion. Labour revised their demand to 6.5% across-the-board baseline increase, plus the non-pensionable cash gratuity,” Godongwana said.

“The employer further indicated that any further increase, above the 2% on the baseline, would require additional funding to be sourced from the Compensation of Employees’ budget and would require the introduction of cost containment measures in the Public Service,” said the Ministers.

While Sadtu has indicated that it may accept the offer, the same proposal has been rejected by other unions, including Nehawu, Denosa, Popcru, and the Public Servants Association.

The unions have since announced their plans to embark on industrial action unless the employer comes up with an improved offer.
Speaking on POWER Perspective on Wednesday, Sadtu spokesperson, Nomusa Cembi, said the majority of their members have accepted the government’s offer.

“Our members have decided to accept with reservation, the deal is nowhere near what we want. It is with heavy hearts that they accepted. Out of nine provinces, there are seven who have accepted and two did not accept. We operate on the process of democratic centralism, so we are going to accept. However, we have not signed.”

Some public service unions are on the verge of calling a national strike amid a wage dispute with the government.

Denosa has advised the members and structures of the union that the negotiations have reached the
dispute level.

“DENOSA and other COSATU unions filed for the joint dispute referral at the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC). This application will invoke the conciliation process in PSCBC. This happened after COSATU unions in the public sector reported in a joint meeting held on October 6, 2022, that their members were rejecting the final offer of the employer,” Denosa said.

In the meantime, Denosa indicated that it will embark on a consultation process through its constitutional structures to unpack the current processes taking place at PSCBC and the possible end results.

INSIDE EDUCATION

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA

THERE are few presidential activities more fulfilling than spending a morning in the company of small children. Last week, I attended the opening of the Little Flower early childhood development (ECD) centre in Bizana in the Eastern Cape, where I got to spend time with some of the future leaders of our country, reading to them and listening to them.

The centre was recently built by the development organisation Impande South Africa through the support of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

I was deeply touched by the dedication of the centre’s staff to supporting the community and its children. They told me how in the centre’s earliest days, staff struggled to get paid and yet still came to work. They also told me that even if families are not able to pay the R20 fee for their child, the children are not turned away.

The commitment of the ECD centre staff is so important because early childhood development centres play a pivotal role in our nation’s development.
These centres can be found in every village, town and city in the country. Most were started by women in the community to support parents who need their children to be cared for when they are at work. Many of these centres began as creches and day-care facilities. Many have subsequently grown and expanded to incorporate a basic learning curriculum into their services.

As government, we have taken up the task to improve the standards of care and make resources available for ECD centres to run suitable activities for young children to prepare them for formal education.

In April this year, we completed the move of the ECD function from the Department of Social Development to the Department of Basic Education.

This is to link early childhood development to the formal school curriculum and to provide training, education and development to staff in ECD centres around the country.

Because this foundational learning is key to a child’s success in later years, the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill that is currently before Parliament proposes that it be compulsory for all children to receive two years of ECD before they enter Grade 1. It is at this stage that children should be taught, learn through play and receive at least one meal a day.

Early childhood development centres don’t just prepare our country’s youngest citizens to succeed in school; they are also an important source of entrepreneurship and job creation. These centres are an important part of the care economy. They sustain livelihoods, especially for women, which contributes to job creation in many communities.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, ECD centres were hard hit. Facilities that rely on school fees to keep running were unable to pay their staff and many parents who lost their jobs were unable to keep their children enrolled.

In response, government established the ECD Employment Stimulus Relief Fund to help ECD centres that had lost income as a result of the pandemic and to enable them to recover.

Preparing our youngest citizens with the tools they need to succeed in life is a responsibility we must collectively shoulder. We must continue to do all we can, as government, the private sector and development organisations, to support early childhood development.

With the many valuable services it provides, whether it is educating our children, providing childcare for working parents or creating opportunities for entrepreneurs, ECD makes a huge contribution to the achievement of many of our developmental goals.

Since the care economy is mainly driven by women, such support goes a long way towards helping women, especially in disadvantaged communities, to become financially secure and independent.

The young children in these centres are the next generation of South Africans who must be able to live up to their full potential as responsible, capable and outstanding citizens.

They must be able to pursue their dreams so that we all may achieve our shared dream of a free, prosperous and happy nation.

From the desk of the President

THE Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) awarded 71 study bursaries to Grade 10 and 11 learners while prize money to schools around South Africa as part of the departments Water and Sanitation Education Programme (WSEP).

Bursaries were awarded to learners to study fields rated in the water and sanitation-related sector, while the prize money will be used by schools to procure water and sanitation related needs for the sustainability of their projects.

“The learners get to study at the university of their choice in the country, in a field of study related to our sector. The comprehensive bursary programme covers full tuition fees, accommodation & food as per university guidance, books and stationery allowance & a monthly stipend” revealed the DWS.

The WSEP initiative aims to address the skills and knowledge shortage in the DWS by challenging Grade 10 to Grade 12 learners to compete and innovative solutions to support the department.

A total of 800 learners have been awarded bursaries to pursue careers in the water and sanitation sector while 3,500 schools have been supported through the programme since its inception.

One competition under the WSEP, the Aqua Enduro action project seeks to identify learners who are passionate and have the determination to pursue careers in the water and sanitation sector.

Nearly 500 schools participated in the programme. Competing schools demonstrated innovative ways to save water and develop sanitation infrastructure.

A further 27 bursaries were awarded for a public speaking competition hosted by the department. Learners debated topics around the state of water and sanitation in the country.