Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za Published by HSRC Press Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa www.hsrcpress.ac.za First published 2007 ISBN 978-0-7969-2186-4 © 2007 Human Sciences Research Council The views expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Human Sciences Research Council (‘the Council’) or indicate that the Council endorses the views of the author. In quoting from this publication, readers are advised to attribute the source of the information to the individual author concerned and not to the Council. Copyedited by Peter Lague Typeset by Stacey Gibson Cover design by Fuel Design Print management by comPress Distributed in Africa by Blue Weaver Tel: +27 (0) 21 701 4477; Fax: +27 (0) 21 701 7302 www.oneworldbooks.com Distributed in Europe and the United Kingdom by Eurospan Distribution Services (EDS) Tel: +44 (0) 20 7240 0856; Fax: +44 (0) 20 7379 0609 www.eurospangroup.com/bookstore Distributed in North America by Independent Publishers Group (IPG) Call toll-free: (800) 888 4741; Fax: +1 (312) 337 5985 www.ipgbook.com Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za Contents Abbreviations vi The essays in context viii Introduction 1 1 Teaching large classes in higher education 11 2 Teacher Education: reconstruction and challenges 27 3 A picture holds us captive 37 4 The practice of organising systematic learning 51 5 What is Teacher Education? 69 6 What is teachers’ work? 91 7 Scripture and practices 109 8 Aims of education in South Africa 137 9 Teacher Education, pluralism and the ugly lines of segregation in South Africa 149 10 Multicultural education in South Africa 165 11 The politics of difference in South African education 181 12 The rubber hits the tar 197 Bibliography 214 Index 218 Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za L E AR NIN G TO TE AC H I N S O U T H A F R I C A vi Abbreviations ABET Adult Basic Education and Training AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome ANC African National Congress BEd Bachelor of Education (Now known as the BEd Hons) BSc Bachelor of Science CASS Continuous Assessment CIEP Centre International d’Etudes Pedagogiques (Paris) CORDTEK Committee of Rectors and Deans of Teacher Education in KwaZulu-Natal COTEP Committee on Teacher Education Policy CPTD Continuing Professional Teacher Development CUP Committee of University Principals DEd Doctor of Education HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus INCLASS International Network for Class Size Study INSET In-service Education of Teachers IPET Initial Professional Education of Teachers MEd Master of Education MST Maths, Science and Technology NCHE National Commission on Higher Education (SA 1996) NECC National Education Crisis Committee OBE Outcomes-Based Education OBET Outcomes-Based Education and Training PhD Doctor of Philosophy PRESET Pre-service Education of Teachers SADTU South African Democratic Teachers’ Union S-G Superintendent-General SRHE The Society for Research into Higher Education (UK) TIMSS Third International Mathematics and Science Study UNAIDS (Joint) United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za vii UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UWC University of the Western Cape WCED Western Cape Education Department Wits University of the Witwatersrand A B B R E V I AT I O N S Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za L E A R N I N G TO TE A C H I N S O U T H A F R I C A viii The essays in context Significant events Essays 1989 Aims of education in South Africa Nelson Mandela released from prison UNESCO World Declaration on Education for All 1990 1991 1992 Teaching large classes in higher education A picture holds us captive The National Education Policy Investigation (NEPI) Report 1993 First democratic election in South Africa 1994 Teacher Education: reconstruction and challenges The South African Qualifications Authority Act (SAQA) 1995 The National Commission on Higher Education Report The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act The National Education Policy Act The South African Schools Act 1996 What is Teacher Education? Teacher Education, pluralism and the ugly lines of segregation in South Africa The politics of difference in South African education Official launch of Curriculum 2005 1997 Higher Education Act 1998 Multicultural education in South Africa Second democratic election in South Africa 1999 The practice of organising systematic learning Scripture and practices Norms and Standards for Educators Curriculum 2005 is reviewed UNESC O World Education Forum – Dakar Framework for Action, Education for All South African Council for Educators (SACE) Act 2000 National Plan for Higher Education Qualifications for Educators in Schooling: Standards Generating Body for Educators in Schooling, Report to SAQA 2001 Implementation of the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) 2002 2003 Ten years of democracy in South Africa Third democratic election in South Africa 2004 2005 The rubber hits the tar What is teachers’ work? Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za I N T RO D U C T I O N 1 Introduction …when jargon might abate, and here and there some genuine speech begin… Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present The earliest of these essays was written in 1989, prior to the unexpected release of Nelson Mandela, the latest in 2005, 11 years after the first democratic election in South Africa. During this period I taught and, for some of the time, was the Dean of Education at the Universities of the Western Cape and Port Elizabeth 1 . From 2003, I was the Chair of the Ministerial Committee on Teacher Education. This background explains why these essays address a web of issues that has emerged in the practical, institutional and political dimensions of our professional lives as we try to transform education in South Africa. It can also explain the three main interweaving themes that run through the book. The first is teaching and the ways in which financial, conceptual, institutional and other constraints set boundaries around what is possible, and seen as possible. The second is an ongoing struggle with relativism and multiculturalism. Relativism was at the root of Apartheid 2 and continues to lead an insidious life in thinking about education in South Africa. The third is Teacher Education, which overlaps with the other two themes and depends heavily on them. Nobody seriously doubts that teaching is at the heart of, and essential to, anything that could be called education or schooling. But, paradoxically, in our policies and plans we think very little about teaching. Perhaps we assume that we all know what teaching is, having experienced it for many years of our lives in schools and other institutions of learning; perhaps we think that it is better to talk of ‘facilitation’ or ‘instruction’; perhaps we think that if only we could improve the ‘management’ of educational institutions then teaching would automatically improve; and perhaps we think that teaching is no longer needed because we now have ‘learner-centred education’. A striking feature of the recent Western Cape Education Department Strategic Plan 3 is its silence about teaching (Essay 12). Perhaps this silence is due to the fact that in South Africa we no longer have any teachers but, instead, now have ‘classroom educators’. Under the impact of workerist modes of thinking and managerialism the fragile professional status of teachers has been undermined Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za L E A R N I N G TO TE A C H I N S O U T H A F R I C A 2 (Essays 2, 5 and 6) and we increasingly reach for curriculum ‘reform’ and shallow notions of ‘accountability’ 4 in our desperate attempt to accomplish the much-to-be-desired ‘transformation’ of education, which does not yet seem to be at hand. These issues are not merely symptoms of the ways in which language sets communication traps in a multilingual society; they indicate frames of thinking that shape not only what we do but how we understand what we are doing. They might also indicate either a sheer ignorance of debates in the fields of teaching and education (Essay 7) or simply an attempt to duck those debates that are, after all, ‘merely theoretical’. In the light of the fact that teaching is essential in any schooling or education, these tendencies are regrettable and likely to hinder the project of educational transformation in our country; we need to retrieve a sense of the centrality of teaching. Teaching is never an easy task, and its difficulties are compounded where resources shrink and learner–teacher ratios escalate under the pressure for greater access, and where we promulgate policies and regulations that might be an outcome of ‘stakeholder negotiations’ 5 but are, in fact, based on unsatisfactory theoretical foundations. Where human, financial and other material resources for education shrink, as they have (and not only in South Africa), there is a tendency to think that ‘standards are declining’ and the only solution is to demand more resources so that the job can be properly done. Such a situation prompted Essays 1 and 3, in which I try to push the boundaries of our usual concept of teaching. Starting from the idea that teaching is conceptually linked to the idea of access, these essays argue that there are two distinct kinds of access – formal and epistemological – not commonly distinguished from each other. Formal access is a matter of access to the institutions of learning, and it depends on factors such as admission rules, personal finances, and so on; epistemological access, on the other hand, is access to knowledge 6 . While formal access is important in the light of our history of unjustifiable institutional exclusions, episte mological access is what the game is about. One way of characterising teaching is to say that it is the practice of enabling epistemological access. In Essays 1 and 3 the argument is made that because we have a restricted concept of teaching, we cannot see how to tackle the problem of maintaining the quality of teaching as resources shrink – the problem of how to increase formal and epistemological access simultaneously. Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za [...]... activity of organising learning The next step is to add the idea of teaching as a practice (dealt with in Essay 4) and we land up with a powerful definition of teaching 3 LEARNING To TEACH IN SoUTH AFRICA as the practice of organising systematic learning The power of this definition is demonstrated in Essay 5, in a context of showing how it can be used as the basis in the reconceptualisation of Teacher Education... idea was to investigate small group teaching in a university setting in South Africa I mildly suggested to him that he would have a better chance of making a contribution to the future of university education if he turned his topic on its head and thought in terms of investigating large group teaching He left, has not come back 15 LEARNING To TEACH IN SoUTH AFRICA to me, and I subsequently heard that... likely, if anything, to increase In a sense we need to change our mindset; we need to come to see that learning how to cope responsibly with the pressure for greater access to higher education can be one of our major contributions to the future of higher education in South Africa But we are not likely to be able to do that as long as we continue to resist thinking systematically about the teaching of large... about Faculties of Education – and others in the business of trying to tell people how to teach – makes us skeptical about the possibility that theorising about a teaching problem is going to make anything like a practical contribution to how we handle it Theorising about teaching has a low reputation among practising teachers I understand clearly why teacher training courses generally have such a low... unimagined developments in electronic technologies10 The idea of teaching as the organising of systematic learning echoes through many of the subsequent essays In Essays 1 and 3 teaching is defined as an activity guided by the intention to promote learning, and it is shown how this definition can enable us to think more flexibly about the activity of teaching This is already a step away from understanding... little interest in what potential students are interested in and is determined to impose his own private agendas on students he might supervise The interesting question here is why this person, employed explicitly to think about teaching and learning in our university, should think that it is more important to investigate small rather than large group teaching, and see as an affront my suggesting that... both interesting and important, and it is connected to our concept of teaching 11 LEARNING To TEACH IN SoUTH AFRICA Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za There are many places in the world where teaching in crowded classes is a constant daily task for countless teachers at all levels of the schooling system from pre-primary to tertiary What my discoveries revealed to me was something that in retrospect... seem to have a professional and institutional inability to face the problem head-on, and think intelligently about how we might cope with it? Why was it so difficult for me, as a teacher at UWC, to get this problem into sharp focus? We might talk here about our reluctance to think about large class teaching in our institutions, but I think it might be more accurate to say that we resist thinking about... section called ‘The concept of teaching’) We should think of concepts not as names but as rules for practical thinking Essay 6 shows how the Norms and Standards for Educators7 defines teaching as if it is the name of roles and responsibilities of teachers employed in the schooling system Due to this way of defining teaching, the Norms and Standards generates an understanding of teachers as civil servants... seem to be overplaying my hand here, I can note that I have vivid experiences in my own faculty of the power of this concept of teaching – seldom, of course, clearly articulated or defended – in distorting and restricting my colleagues’ thinking about the practical tasks of teaching The formal element of the concept of teaching is that it is an activity guided by the intention to promote learning There . range of teachers is appointed in each school and that teachers are expected to do many things in addition to teaching. But good teachers are in short. (namely that teaching is the organising of systematic learning) throws stronger emphasis on to learning and the specific activity of organising learning. The