The Thuto Teacher Development Programme aims to produce public school teachers who will impact the lives of children ages 6 to 13 during their Primary School years (Grade 0 to 7). This addresses the entire phase of a child's fundamental learning on which strong foundations for higher education can be built. We seek to produce effective, motivated, inspirational, and professional teachers for South African schools in scarce skills.
South Africa is experiencing an education crisis on several fronts. In 2015, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a report ranking the education systems of 76 countries from around the world. South Africa's education system was ranked 75th in quality of math and science. Furthermore, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study revealed that South African learners are behind their international counterparts in terms of literacy.
To produce inspiring and effective teachers by 1. Academic: obtain a 4-year Bachelor of Education degree (B. Ed). The focus will be on Literacy and Numeracy in Foundation Phase and Math and Science in Intermediate Phase. 2. Classroom experience: seeking effective teaching techniques and methods that will produce quality teachers who will have a good understanding of the content they will be teaching.
The impact of this programme will be to ensure that in the in the next decade every 10 year old in South Africa will be able to read with meaning and is also able to do basic numeracy. To also ensure that kids are able to progress from primary schooling then secondary schooling until they complete a higher education certification. This will also reduce the dropout rates of the student that join the system before they complete their studies.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
