Sol Plaatje University’s (SPU) School of Education will train maths and science teachers across the Northern Cape in a multi-million-rand project.
The University is one of six universities participating in the programme that has been established by SANRAL and the University of the Free State and stretches across several provinces.
The SPU project, overseen by Dr Glynnis Daries, Dr Tracey Herman, Dr Wiets Botes, and Mr Tokelo Sefatsa, began in 2019 and 2020, and has grown to include 14 primary schools, 14 school principals, two departmental officials from the Northern Cape Department of Education (NCDoE), 53 Grade 3 teachers, 1 908 Grade 3 learners, and several parents, guardians or caregivers. The project is expected to run until 2024.
The programme, which is an extension of the Family Math and Key Concepts in Science programmes, allows for new learning hubs that will help reach more teachers, learners and parents.
The programme will also serve as a platform that enables the knowledge and experience gained by other institutions over the past few years to be shared, building additional capacity and training more communities.
The development of this project addresses the challenges teachers face, such as a lack of resources, inadequate parental participation, and the challenge of discrepancies between the language of teaching and learning and the learners’ home language.
The Family Math leg of the programme aims to address these issues by involving teachers, school principals, NCDoE subject advisors, parents, guardians, and caregivers of these grade 3 learners.
Key Concepts in Science is a programme developed for natural sciences in grades 8 and 9, to build a solid foundation and ensure physical sciences success in grades 10 to 12.
The project leaders explain that secondary school learners must master the foundational science content knowledge that informs the natural science subject syllabus at the senior phase level.
The Key Concepts programme aims to orient natural science teachers on how a practical science teaching approach in their teaching stimulates a more meaningful natural science learning experience for learners.
For this project, the School of Education team is Dr Wiets Botes and Lawrence Sefatsa. Three workshops were held at SPU in 2021.
