While teachers’ qualifications have improved significantly in the past decade, the performance of learners remains dismal, a new education department report says. As a result, educationists are calling for better ways of assessing what happens in the classroom.
The report, released last week, reviews access to education, learner progress in the system and quality improvements in the past 10 years.
It says that in 1990 53% of teachers were appropriately qualified — that is, they had a senior certificate pass and a minimum of three years of training. This had increased to 94,4% by last year, meaning that ”only 5,6% of educators were unqualified or under-qualified”, the report says.
But the fact that the ”performance of learners remains low — raises questions about the value of paper qualifications as a measure of the competency of teachers”.
Education researcher Russell Wildeman of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa says the report is of limited value because ”it does not really tell you why things are like this. We need data on what is happening in the classroom in order to make progress.”
Salim Vally, a senior researcher in the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation at the University of Johannesburg, says: ”Even though teacher qualifications might be good, the conditions that some teachers work in have a negative impact on their performance in class. Some learners have to cope with difficult socioeconomic issues at home that affect their progress in class.
”There is no way that teachers, even if they have good qualifications, can solve this problem.”
The report states that the improvements in teacher qualifications have taken place largely among black educators, which means equity in the distribution of qualifications has increased.
As the result, the gap between the number of appropriately qualified black as opposed to white teachers has narrowed.
The report also says:
- Although there was an increase from 13% to 16% in the 20 to 24 age group attending university between 2000 and 2005, by international standards this is still relatively low;
- While 81% of the group born between 1980 and 1984 reached grade 9, only 60% of the same group reached grade 11 and 46% reached grade 12.
- South Africa’s record pertaining to academic achievement has been less than remarkable when compared with advances made in improving access and — studies showed South African children were lagging behind;
- Education’s share of government expenditure has declined from almost 22% in 1996-97 to 18% in 2006-07.
The report says that, despite this decline spending remains in line with education investment targets set out by Unesco’s ”Education for All” movement, which state that governments should set aside between 15% and 20% of public expenditure for education.
”The report is necessary but it lacks the data that allows us to track down the pace and progress in the education system,” says Wildeman.
The government compromised education to address short-term social issues such as the alleviation of poverty, he says.
Vally says that although some teachers are better qualified, this does not mean that all have the capacity and experience to cope with the challenges posed by the classroom environment.
”Good qualifications do not make you a better teacher,” he says.
”To get really meaningful indicators of what is happening in the school system, we need to go down [to] grassroots level.
”What is the use of having a good teacher qualification if your school does not have a library?” he asks.
Catholic Institute of Education director Mark Potterton says ”teaching and learning time is not properly adhered to in many schools”.
”Teachers do not use the time allocated to finish the syllabus effectively. This leads to them not finishing their work on time,” he says.