Bachelor of Education in Senior Phase and Further Education and Training Teaching

Purpose

The Bachelor of Education in Senior Phase and Further Education and Training Teaching offers an initial teacher education qualification for those who want to qualify as professional educators for the Senior and Further Education and Training (FET) phases. The qualification aims at developing the professional competence of educators to develop knowledge and skills as a subject/discipline specialist at the Senior and FET phases. The curriculum of the qualification intends to offer adequate disciplinary knowledge in subject content and education fields, necessary pedagogical and practical knowledge required for the teaching of the selected subjects in the Senior and FET phases in South African schools.

This qualification aims to:

• Prepare critical educators, creative problem solvers, and agents of change.
• Produce quality educators who can deal with the diverse development challenges in both urban and rural contexts.
• Produce teachers to critique current and outdated knowledge, methodological/pedagogical practices, and to come up with innovative methods of teaching in their subject specializations.
• Produce teachers who are committed, loyal, and are patriots and willing to serve at different levels, i.e. local, provincial, and at the national level.
• Produce teachers who can turn situations around and produce good academic achievement even in difficult and challenging situations.
• Produce teachers who make effective use of relevant technology in teaching.
• Produce reflective teachers who can learn from their experiences and come up with strategies to improve teaching and learning.

Teachers are required to study two specialisation subjects at least up to the second-year level to give them adequate content knowledge for FET school subjects. The teachers will also be grounded in the Foundations of Education and other pedagogics. This knowledge will enable teachers to critically reflect on the current practices in our schools to bring the much-needed reforms in classroom practices in the schools.

Rationale

The qualification will produce the much-needed teachers in the Social Sciences and Humanities, Mathematics and Sciences, Commerce, and Agricultural Science. Teachers in these subjects are in demand in the country in general and in the Eastern Cape in particular. The qualification will prepare teachers with adequate subject knowledge. Teachers will reflect on their classroom practices to produce learners who will contribute to the socio-economic and technological development of the province and the nation. Teachers must go to different categories of schools for teaching practices to make them aware of the diverse contexts of the schools. Thus the curriculum accommodates the immediate needs of the local schools and the province. It also provides the global views and perceptions on education to prepare them for work even outside the borders of South Africa.