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Motshekga concludes Teachers’ Month with release of a revised Talis report

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Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has concluded the Teachers’ Month, which is October, with the release of the second version of the Teaching and Learning International Survey report (Talis).

The survey was conducted on over 200 000 teachers in 48 countries around the world.

South Africa is the only country on the continent featured in the survey.

Motshekga says although all countries represented seem to be having different challenges, she hopes the study will be a useful benchmark for improvement in the country’s education system.

“It’s a very good and helpful start because it also benchmarks us with other countries. So, it’s not us saying this about ourselves. It’s interviews that were conducted by teachers. Hence, I’m saying we can argue as unions or as leaders but it’s not government. It’s coming from the very unions themselves.”

Rotational System in schools 

Meanwhile, the Education Department has been considering other ways of dealing with social distancing in classrooms. The rotation system where learners have been going to school once or twice a week has proven ineffective with some learners losing two weeks at a time in some schools.

Motshekga says they have had to also cut out some parts of the curriculum because of the reduced contact time. She says they might copy some schools who are now using body screens to keep the same number of learners in the class.

“We are looking also at other measures. Other big schools for instance are using body screens not distancing because physical distancing is very expensive for us because it means we have to cut classes in half. At a school where DG went in KZN, they are using screens. It is the same class of 35 and they are using screens. You just manage the movement of learners, so which means they able to have a normal timetable which is our biggest challenge now.”

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