I stay in the North West province. That is where I stay! A lack of infrastructure is said to be contributing to poor results, especially in rural schools, where you have unqualified or poorly qualified teachers and no laboratory, library or equipment to assist the teacher.
Teachers, on the other hand, are frustrated by the ever-changing curriculum jargon. Cope welcomes the recent announcements by the Minister of Basic Education of the Integrated Strategic Planning Framework for Teacher Education and Development to improve the quality of teacher education and development, in order to improve the quality of teachers and teaching. Cope hopes this will not end up like outcomes-based education, OBE, where teachers were inadequately trained and instructions were not clear.
We also hope that the resources will be available and that the department shall consult extensively with all the stakeholders. Cope believes that if all of these are not done, the framework will falter, just like the teacher laptop initiatives.