Improving Basic Education Submission to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee Presented by Jenny Glennie Director May 2010

Saide Committed to quality lifelong education for all Building access with success since 1992

Premises  Design a schooling system for the majority – not the most privileged 20% - learners and teachers  ‘The textbook is one of the most effective tools through which to deliver the curriculum and support assessment’ DoE Review Report, 2009

Premises Cont’d  Teachers are key to the success of the Basic Education System  So textbooks should be supported by teacher guides which  interpret the curriculum framework  give teachers additional background information and depth to the content, and giving concrete examples of planning and activities  provide concrete guidance on what is to be assessed, why it is assessed, and how it can be assessed  And teacher development should be prioritised

Key Propositions 1.Textbooks as open educational resources (OER) 2.More standardised and coherently distributed teacher development 3.Schools as centres of care and support

1.Textbooks and Open Educational Resources (OER)  OER are educational resources that are available for use by educators and learners, without an accompanying need to pay royalties and licence fees  Use this concept to maximise cost-effectiveness of textbooks  Suggest team of subject/learning area experts build core texts for each subject at each grade  Release as OER on Thutong  Work with publishers to customise and design textbooks, building on the core text, to print and to distribute

2.Teacher Development We should require  Essentials of reading instruction methodology, especially in home language, as well as in English as a first additional language, drawing on methodology of Kha Ri Gude where learning guides in all 11 languages have been released as OER  Teachers’ own language improvement  Understanding of and ability to teach the content of the National Curriculum – pedagogical content knowledge is key

2.Teacher Development Needs to be conceptualised  in an integrated manner, between HEIs and departmental and district personnel, and covering initial and ongoing teacher development  with distributed responsibility across HEIs, officials, teaching schools, teaching development centres, NGOs

3.Addressing socio-economic barriers Consider extending the school day to 7 hours, or at least providing organised after-care, to provide  Additional time for academic support and homework  Appropriately resourced environments in which to do homework  Strengthening and enhancing of the national nutrition programme  Integration of sport and cultural activities into the school day

3.Addressing socio-economic barriers