With the general elections around the corner, various political parties are all promising all sorts of things especially on education reform, but will their plans deliver real change?
Dr Corrin Varady, CEO of IDEAS, said voters should separate well-intentioned promises from practical solutions in order to identify if any of these plans can truly move the country’s education system from a culture of passing grades to one of achievement and global competitiveness.
Varady said that some proposed education policies were promising on paper.
“However, a closer look reveals impracticalities for their execution at school, teacher or learner level,” he said.
Varady said with this in mind, he had identified the strengths and weaknesses of each manifesto to help translate some of the more practical concepts, providing actionable steps where necessary.
The digital learning crosses the political divide with parties across the board recognising the need for digital learning as part of their policies, he said.
“Beyond its cost-effectiveness and potential to democratise access to quality education, digital learning can be used to execute on a number of the solutions proposed in the various manifestoes such as mother-tongue or bilingual instruction and reducing student-to-teacher ratios, among others, thereby circumnavigating a number of the major roadblocks to the development of a culture of achievement.”
On policing versus empowering teachers, the DA, RISE Mzansi, and Patriotic Alliance have called for improved teacher training, proposing policies like mandatory competence testing for teachers and reinstating school inspectors to address ineffectiveness.
However, Varady said this was an unfair and unrealistic policing approach that would add more fuel to the current teacher shortage fire.
Research showed that entry-level graduate teachers’ pedagogy was not the problem, he said.
“We must engage educators to further understand what their professional and personal needs are. We should also incentivise, not punish educators to achieve, innovate and pursue life-long learning.
“This approach could aid in attracting more teachers into the workforce which is a critical concern particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects,” Varady added.
Furthermore, he said waving a magic wand was not going to equip educators with the necessary skills.
The IDEA’s CEO said the country needed to shift from an education culture that saw crisis as the only priority to one where achievement was the prime concern.
“Doing so requires eschewing unenforced and impractical Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programmes and developing a more comprehensive and supportive approach to teacher training.
“Perhaps the solution for producing more and better teachers, as well as for repairing the disconnect between theory and practice, lies in reopening teacher training colleges as suggested by the IFP and United Democratic Movement (UDM).
“While all parties agree on the provision of digital learning for pupils, this should also be included as a strategy to help teachers.
“After all, increasing access to professional development for teachers is as important as increasing access to schools for learners.”
Varady said the government needed to empower educators with digital resources that could help them in their professional journeys and with content mastery.
This, he said, could prove particularly useful in STEM subjects which have been highlighted as critical for the future by parties such as the ANC, Build One South Africa (Bosa), and African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP).
The Star