Five-hundred teaching assistants to help improve literacy and numeracy
31 January 2006
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.
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.
âEnsuring 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.
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 therefore 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.
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".
Enquiries:
Gert Witbooi
Cell: 082 550 3938
E-mail: gwitbooi@pgwc.gov.za.
Issued by: Department of Education, Western Cape Provincial Government
31 January 2006
