By Gail Campbell, CEO of Zenex Foundation
As South Africa embarks on a new chapter following the recent national elections, it is an opportune moment to reflect on the past 15 years of progress in our education sector and to delineate strategic priorities moving forward.
It is good to remember that education reform is a marathon, not a sprint.
Most South Africans are aware of the huge challenges faced by the education system. However, the full story is not all doom and gloom. Although severe challenges persist, there have been positive developments that provide a platform for driving forward the next phase of education reform.
In the last 15 years, progress has been made in learner achievement, but our education system’s achievement is still below the norm as a middle-income country.
In the spirit of the Government of National Unity (GNU), Minister Gwarube has said that she intends to set up a consultative forum consisting of education sector representatives, trade unions, school governing bodies and others to find sustainable and effective solutions.
Any hope of meaningful education reform calls for “all hands on deck”. The problems are too urgent, complex and structural for anything other than all stakeholders coming together in true collaboration to address them.
Given the challenges, where should Minister Gwarube begin?
Firstly, addressing both the supply and quality of new teachers and the needs of in-service teachers is critical. In initial teacher education, the Minister needs to work closely with the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) to ensure that the Bachelor of Education curriculum produces graduates who are able to work in the contexts we face in South Africa.
For continuous teacher professional development, the Minister needs to prioritise subject content and pedagogy which cannot be done in short-term superficial training programmes. Programmes should focus on equipping teachers with effective instructional strategies, particularly in literacy and numeracy.
Secondly, a curriculum review is required to ensure that the curriculum focuses on developing knowledge and skills in-depth and well, rather than superficially. South Africa’s curriculum is fundamentally well-structured and aims high in terms of educational goals.
Yet the amount of content prescribed in the curriculum is more extensive than the number of school days available in the academic year. For example, in primary school, the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) specifies 200 lessons in the curriculum but realistically, once assessments, sports and other extra-mural activities have been removed, we are only left with 140 lessons.
Furthermore, the curriculum operates under the assumption that learners enter the schooling system after experiencing quality early childhood development (ECD) and a home environment that supports development. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case.
Many teachers are unable to fully engage with the curriculum because they must address learning backlogs in addition to the curriculum. This problem underscores the urgent need for a comprehensive review and adjustment of the curriculum to ensure it is aligned with the realities of the contexts in which South African children must live and learn.
Thirdly, sufficient learning and teaching materials are essential. It is crucial to ensure that learning resources such as books, are available to all learners and teachers to improve and maintain the quality of education.
Through the Ulwazi Lwethu Project, Zenex Foundation funded the development of over 1400 readers in all African languages to enable effective early literacy development.
The readers are specifically designed to teach learners in the Foundation Phase to read in their home language and address the critical need for language-rich learning environments.
Fourthly, the country’s language policy promotes mother tongue instruction, but its implementation is inconsistent. Most learners whose mother tongue is one of the nine African languages must transition to English instruction in Grade 4, which creates significant barriers to learning and is a contributing factor in South Africa’s low outcomes in international tests.
Strengthening mother tongue education throughout the primary years is critical for improving comprehension and learning outcomes.
Finally, enhancing technical capacity throughout the education ecosystem should be a priority. A supportive environment is needed that fosters a culture of excellence, responsibility and accountability, as distinct from mere compliance.
Creating pathways for new graduates, young professionals, and mid-career professionals to enter the education management aspect of the sector is another strategy.
What do the above focus areas mean for the donor community?
For funders and philanthropic organisations this requires introspection of how their programmes align with broader systemic goals rather than serving individual organisational agendas.
Contributing to system change means that philanthropists must dedicate a substantial portion of their resources to practical and sustainable initiatives that foster deeper, systemic collaboration with government, which become integral parts of government budgets, planning, and evaluation.
Moving forward requires the collaboration of all stakeholders to expand on the positive developments of the past 15 years through increased access to quality, fit-for-purpose education.
Education change requires untiring patience and unwavering commitment from all stakeholders if every child is to be given the opportunity to succeed.
* The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of IOL or Independent Media.