Statement by Cameron Dugmore, MEC for Education in the Western Cape

The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has advertised 500 teaching assistant posts as part of its Literacy and Numeracy Strategy, to help improve the reading and mathematics skills of children in the Foundation Phase  [for an extract from the MEC's presentation, click here ("mp3" format)].

The teaching assistants will support teachers and learners in Grades 1 to 3, as a pilot project, which is part of a broader Literacy and Numeracy Strategy of the WCED. Hundred-and-sixty schools will benefit from this historic pilot project. The teaching assistants will be employed locally by the schools.

The WCED is looking for people with Senior Certificate and appropriate experience in working with children. They must enjoy working with children from different cultural backgrounds and must be able handle classroom situations with fairness and patience.

They must have initiative and be willing to follow a teacher’s directions. They must be bilingual and have basic computing skills. Advertisements have already been posted. The deadline for applications is 8 February 2006. The teaching assistants must report for duty on 1 March 2006.

The WCED‘s Directorate: Curriculum Development is already working with schools and Education Management and Development Centres (EMDCs) in each district to prepare for the arrival of the teaching assistants.

The teaching assistants will attend several week-long training programmes during the course of the year, provided by the Further Education and Training (FET) colleges.

They will also attend organised orientation sessions with teachers, principals, professional support teams in EMDCs and officials, to ensure that everybody understands the roles they have to play in this project.

Criteria for allocating teaching assistant posts include schools in disadvantaged areas in nodal development zones; schools generally in poor areas; under-performance in literacy and numeracy; schools where learners are not learning in their home languages; and schools that actively help learners with learning difficulties.

The WCED will also allocate posts to selected schools offering inclusive education for learners with disabilities. Allocation criteria also include large classes, especially in the Foundation Phase; and multi-grade classes, which have more than 30 learners.

Applicants will be required to undergo an assessment to determine their suitability for the position and to ensure that they have appropriate skills in literacy and numeracy. There is no cost to the Teaching Assistant for the training, which is compulsory.

The WCED has placed advertisements in provincial and community newspapers and prospective teaching assistants must send their applications to the EMDC that serves the school or schools of their choice by Wednesday, 8 February 2006. Applicants can obtain further information from Sandra Fortuin on (021) 467-2584.

Ensuring that our children can properly read, write and calculate, is one of the priorities for this department. When we tested Grade 3 and 6 learners and found that only about a third of these learners can read, write and calculate at the appropriate levels, I was alarmed, and we had to intervene  [for a further extract from the MEC's presentation, click here ("mp3" format)].

What for me was of extreme concern, but not surprising, was that almost all the children who struggle to read, write and calculate at the required level, attend schools in our poor communities.

Classes in these schools are often overcrowded, making it difficult for teachers to attend to individual children, and to generally manage the teaching and learning process.

Because we were able to increase the number of teaching posts with an extra 292 for this year, we decided to use some of the posts creatively to address the very real challenges we face in improving the numeracy and literacy skills of Foundation Phase learners.

We have therefor used the budget for 100 of these posts to establish 500 teaching assistant posts, which we have allocated to schools in poor communities in all education districts of the province.

The duties of the teaching assistants will include listening to learners reading, working with groups and individuals to improve words skills, developing number concept skills, and assisting teachers with classroom organisation and management.

The teaching assistants will help to supervise class activities, to allow teachers to teach groups of learners. They will work closely with teachers on support programmes designed to develop the skills of learners with special problems, and will support learners who are not learning in their home language. The teaching assistants will help teachers prepare, distribute, collect and store learning and teaching support materials.

We are fast-tracking this project because we want to see results by the end of the year. The schools will employ the teaching assistants on a contract basis until the end of November, as this is a pilot project. The department will evaluate the project during the course of the year to determine whether or not we should continue with it next year  [for a further extract from the MEC's presentation, click here ("mp3" format)].

This is an exciting project, and we are looking forward to learning as much as we can about how best to provide this kind of support where it is needed the most.

General Education and Training, covering Grades R to 9, provides the foundation for all future learning. We are starting at the beginning by looking at reading, writing and calculating in the Foundation Phase.

In addition to addressing the very basic needs of our learners, this project is creating jobs to meet the objectives of the President’s Expanded Public Works Programme.

It forms part of our Human Capital Development Strategy, which in turn forms part of the province’s iKapa Elihlumayo strategy to "grow and share the Cape".

For enquiries, contact Gert Witbooi:  082 550 3938, or gwitbooi@pgwc.gov.za.