TEACH Panel Discussion

Facilitator: Peter Glover

Panel:
1. Benjamin Zvidzai, ex-TEACH Ambassador
2. Graham Sefama, principal of Buhlebuzile Secondary School
3. Prof Graham Hall from WITS
4. Dr Muavia Gallie, managing director, Education Moving Up

Topic: How schools, the Department of Basic Education and the community can empower TEACH Ambassadors and teachers and add value to the South African Education System

Benjamin Zvidzai, an ex-TEACH Ambassador at the Jongimfundo Primary School in Vosloorus, Johannesburg, began with reflecting on his experience before discussing his recommendations for adding value to the education system. He believes all education stakeholders should be involved in the formulation of policies, in particular, the language policy. He says, as a former English Ambassador, he saw that English is still being sidelined in favour of the vernacular. With English being the global language, this needs to be rectified.

He said there should be more learner development projects – he was involved in sports projects that gave learners an opportunity to get involved in extra-curricular activities. He also introduced a mobile English project where learners were sent homework via their parents’ cellphones.

Benjamin said he is concerned about resources at school not being utilised. He encountered many instances where brand new textbooks were stored and forgotten about and not distributed to learners, or that the computer science room was locked.

He said the Department of Basic Education has a responsibility to ensure that teaching remains a noble profession.

Benjamin concluded that the support of parents in the communities is vital to the Ambassadors. They need to supervise homework, ensure that their children go to school, while discipline should start at home. There also needs to be a focus on those households that are headed up by children, where parents have passed away.

Graham Sefama, the principal of Buhlebuzile Secondary School in Thokoza, Johannesburg, recruited three TEACH Ambassadors at his school in 2010 to teach English and Maths. He said TEACH South Africa clearly explained to him and his staff what the role of the Ambassadors would be; that they were part of the school, part of them, and needed to be included in everything including extra-curricular activities.

He said that, typically, learners will test new, young teachers, especially the older learners. If they are not strong enough, they will end up in tears every day or consulting doctors. However the Ambassadors demonstrated sound class management, which goes hand-in-hand with good teaching, and their classes were the most disciplined. In addition, they were monitored by the facilitators and were found to be doing a good job.

He suggested that Ambassadors be placed in the TEACH South Africa system for a period of five years instead of two, as they will add more value this way.

He concluded by reporting that out of the three Ambassadors at his school, two have already being appointed as full-time teachers.

Prof Graham Hall was the next panellist. He is the recently retired head of the Johannesburg College of Education, and was also responsible for the college’s integration into Wits University. Hall is an advisor to TEACH South Africa.

Hall said there was an ulterior motive to his interest in TEACH South Africa and that he was intrigued by the teaching model the organisation used. “Firstly, TEACH South Africa selects its Ambassadors very carefully. Secondly, the introductory programme for TEACH Ambassadors is short and intensive but very effective, while at university this process is so much longer.” Hall said the TEACH South Africa school is built on good interaction between Mentors and Ambassadors, which was not the case at universities.

“Now I have to ask how universities can contribute to TEACH South Africa,” said Hall. “Universities must now allow Ambassadors to use their resources, and they must also make post-graduate qualification more accessible to them, instead of putting obstacles in their way.” Hall said universities must also be more accommodating so that more learners can go on to qualify as teachers.

“After all, these young men and women are committing to a service,” said Hall. “There should also be a general principle in this country that every graduate goes into some sort of service. Let’s inculcate a spirit of wanting to perform service to this country for two or three years.”

Hall told the story of a dinner party in the Johannesburg northern suburbs where a wealthy businessman turned to a young teacher and said, “So what do you make?”

She said, “I make a D-grade pupil believe he can succeed whatever the odds. I encourage all pupils to believe in themselves. I instruct pupils to ignore stupid questions like ‘what do you make?’ I make a difference.”

The fourth member of the panel was Dr Muavia Gallie, a consultant on education management to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef). Dr Gallie shocked the audience with his statistics. “Out of 14 countries that surround us, South Africa comes ninth in numeracy and literacy. If we take eight as the average, we are at the bottom.”

He said more recent statistics showed South Africa had moved from ninth to 10th. “But Namibia, which was 13th, has risen and is now above us at ninth,” said Gallie.

“Our education is in an absolute, serious crisis and I’m afraid it will make Libya look like a kindergarten party if we don’t wake up.”

Gallie said the difference between humans and animals was hope. “Take away hope and humans become animals.” He said the chance of a good education was the only hope for poverty-stricken children but that they were being denied this.

“Our education system is 8% successful. Think of the game Musical Chairs. Think of one chair being equivalent to half a million learners. Then think of Grade 1 in schools where there are 12-million learners and therefore 24 chairs. In Grade 2 there are 20 chairs, a number that drops until in Grade 12 there are 11 chairs left.”

Gallie said last year’s education results were the worst since pre-1994. “Last year the lowest number of learners that started Grade 1 went through to complete Grade 12.”

Latest figures showed that the Western Cape was the best performing province in education, but its pass rate was 50%. “R174-billion is spent on education in this country and the top performing province cannot even reach 50%,” said Gallie. “It’s ludicrous.”

He said our best learners are equal to the worst learners in Singapore. “We have four categories of schools – I call them high-performing, under-performing, dysfunctional, and chaotic schools. And 10% or 2 500 of the country’s schools are chaotic. In dysfunctional schools, of the 198 school days of the year, pupils were only given 65 days of schooling.”

He said under-performing schools should be where one or more learners were not achieving, not huge numbers of them. “I do not buy the story about the importance of making a difference to one child. What about the other 40?”

Gallie said it was the birthright of every child that walked through a school gate to be successful and it was for that, that teachers got paid. “But R178-billion is spent on education yet children aren’t benefiting.”

The number of teachers had increased from 354 000 to 480 000 but, according to Gallie, it was making no difference. “Are more teachers being sent to cover the space left by lazy teachers or to add value?”

He asked if TEACH Ambassadors were also going to schools to make up for lazy teachers or were they going to schools where teachers worked hard already and the Ambassadors only added value.

School management, he said, was now absolutely crucial. “We must stop talking about quality education. We’re not getting any. And if the situation doesn’t change I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a war among the youth in five years’ time. Our crisis in education is bigger than the political crisis pre-1994.”