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Conversations about teachers: Summary of the fifth conversation

Stakeholders in education met On the 28th of August 2023, the fifth series of conversations about teachers was hosted by the Education Sector Committee of the South African Commission (SA NATCOM) for UNESCO in collaboration with the faculty of education at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), the library at UJ and JET Education Services (JET). The discussion theme was, “Why are teachers important?”

Towards a performance management framework for TVET lecturers in South Africa

This research is focused on enhancing the relationship between performance appraisal (PA) and continuing professional development (CPD) within the wider performance management of South African technical and vocational education and training (TVET) lecturers. It aims to address the country’s challenges in job creation and skills development by contributing to a well-aligned performance management and CPD system. Emphasising the importance of TVET lecturers in national human resource development (HRD), the research underscores the critical role of lecturers in shaping skilled graduates, thus contributing to economic growth, and advocates for a fair accountability process through PA in TVET colleges’ performance management systems.

The TICZA Community of Practice (CoP) Series # 13 Summary Report: 20 February 2024

Sustainability and Scale in the Context of Extended-teacher Internships (ESTIs): Perspectives of Funders and Implementers.

TICZA Annual Report 2023

Teacher Internship Collaboration South Africa's (TICZA) Annual Report, December 2023

DHET PSET Research Repository

The Department of Higher Education and Training (the Department) and its entities undertake research to better understand their various sub-sectors, and identify challenges and opportunities in an effort to guide resource allocations.

TICZA Implementation Compendium Issue 1 2024

TICZA (the Teacher Internship Collaboration South Africa) is a collective impact project designed to support mutually-reinforcing activities among discrete actors in the education sector related to initial teacher education. Collective impact as a concept is designed to address complex problems through the collaborative efforts of multiple stakeholders. In a collective impact project, emphasis is on alignment and partnership between government, private and third sector organisations that work towards shared goals and measure the same things. In order to ensure that shared goals are mutually understood and consistently measured, reaching consensus on terminology is an essential starting point. Given the complex and dynamic nature of teacher education, it should not be surprising that terminology may need to be adapted. Critically, though, all stakeholders in the collective impact project ought to be abreast of policy terminology. Moreover, where contestation arises amongst stakeholders in the collective impact project regarding concepts, existing policy should be deferred to and aligned with.

Global report on teachers: addressing teacher shortages and transforming the profession

The 14th Policy Dialogue highlights the global teacher shortage and discusses ways to improve the attractiveness of the profession.

Policy Insights: Models of Philanthropy in Education

Unveiling diverse approaches and perspectives on Philanthropy in Education with a new Policy Insights publication: M𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗽𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗘𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 which encapsulates critical research findings from 39 experts from around the globe who participated in NORRAG’s Philanthropy in Education symposium series. James Keevy, JET CEO contributed a paper titled: Philanthropy in education in Africa: a space for learning and new forms of collaboration

Using co-creation to address monitoring and evaluation challenges: The experience of South Africa’s evaluation hackathon

In 2021, the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association facilitated an evaluation hackathon that engaged diverse stakeholders in co-creation processes to develop practical solutions to address complex problems facing the monitoring and evaluation sector. The event catalysed broad-based ownership and enabled the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association to coordinate the creative energy, commitment and resources of its members, government and other partners to achieve outcomes that would not be possible to achieve otherwise. The article analyses the co-creation approach adopted for the hackathon across four phases, namely initiation, process design/planning, co-design and development and application/follow-up. A retrospective analysis of the process and results identified eight key elements that enabled or impeded the successful completion of hackathon outputs and their conversion into useful products. These elements are facilitative leadership, purposive stakeholder selection, a well-delimited task, preparation, process facilitation, a valued product, voluntary contributions and further capacity. The lessons learnt provide useful insight for future efforts to generate localised, contextualised responses to evaluation problems.

JET Exchanges 5/2023: The Grade R Mathematics and Language Improvement Programme

The 5th JET Exchanges shares information about the Grade R Mathematics and Language Improvement Programme (MLIP) in which JET is a partner, describing the context in which the programme is being implemented before providing details on the programme itself. Foundational mathematics and literacy skills are premier issues in South African classrooms, both for learners as well as educators. South Africa has invested in several reading and mathematics interventions in the past years; however, setbacks like the COVID-19 pandemic rolled back progress that had been made. According to a background report by Spaull for the 2030 Reading Panel, If learning loss estimates are correct and SA does manage to get back onto the prepandemic improvement trajectory, it will still take 86 years from 2023 up to 2108 until all Grade 4 children can read for meaning in SA (Spaull, 2023, 8). Currently, 65% of learners lack the skills needed to progress in language and mathematics (Gauteng Education Development Trust, 2021, 7). Considering the challenging landscape for advancing effective mathematics and literacy interventions, the Grade R MLIP has led efforts toward improving outcomes in these areas for all schools in Gauteng Province offering Grade R from 2022 through 2024.