The complexities of the new school curriculum are placing increasing demands on teachers and many are apprehensive about their changing roles as educators. The advanced certificate in education offered by Wits University’s School of Education has been developed to provide the training requirements for teachers working in this challenging environment.
The director of the Centre for Professional Development in Education at Wits, Carola Steinberg, said: ‘Recent trends have shown teachers are becoming more interested in improving their educational qualifications. This course gives students what they need to fulfil the new policy and curriculum development requirements for the government’s new education policy, Curriculum 2005.”
The demands of the new curriculum necessitate further training for teachers. The curriculum requires teachers to be decision-makers and to develop learning programmes for their students. The government’s policy of inclusion has also resulted in an increasing number of teachers having to teach learners with special educational needs. Teachers without adequate training feel they are not prepared for the new curriculum.
The new certificate is offered as a part-time programme over two years. It is aimed at teachers holding a three-year diploma who want to upgrade to a level six qualification, as well as at teachers wanting to change their current teaching orientation to more specialised fields.
The Wits School of Education offers new courses in specialisations such as science, English, special educational needs, deaf education, arts and culture and human rights.
The course in science caters for teachers at intermediate and senior phases. Teachers learn about the new scientific knowledge covered in the new curriculum.
The special educational needs course focuses on the challenges facing teachers resulting from the new policy on inclusive schools. The course deals with strategies used to overcome issues such as cultural differences in the classroom and various barriers to learning.
The course in arts and culture provides teachers with practical art-making skills and also has an introduction to dance, drama and music. Arts and culture is a new learning area in the curriculum, and schools previously unable to offer these subjects are now expressing a growing interest in doing so.
The deaf education course is aimed at teachers working in schools specifically for the deaf or in non-specific schools with deaf learners. The teachers learn South African sign language and how to work with deaf learners using an outcomes-based approach. The government recently accorded sign language the status of 12th official language in South Africa, but only a small percentage of teachers in deaf schools know the language. Wits is the only tertiary institution in South Africa offering this course.
The course in democracy and human rights has grown out of a joint venture with the Department of Education.
The structure of all these courses makes it easy for teachers to work and study at the same time. They are delivered through a programme consisting of lectures and workshops held during school holidays, as well as interactive course materials for home study.
The advanced certificate in education replaces the further diploma in education, previously offered by Wits. Steinberg said the course had grown from strength to strength and was constantly evolving to meet the ever-changing needs facing education in South Africa. ‘We have well-written and accessible teaching material, we offer student support and formative assessment. We have small classes that allow us to provide individual attention.”