The Sol Plaatje Programme for the Development of Teacher Education in South Africa
In his 'Call to Action' statement issued on 27th July 1999, South Africa's Minister of Education, Professor Kader Asmal MP outlined his education priorities. He wrote:
"Despite our success stories we are failing especially with those wide-flung tracts of the [education] system that serve poor urban and rural communities. Our new systems of governance, administration and finance have not yet succeeded in hauling these communities out of the arbitrary and unequal conditions imposed by generations of apartheid and minority rule. In some areas and some respects the situation has deteriorated."
A most serious weakness is that one third of all educators in South African schools are under-qualified or unqualified. This is a result of poor teacher training and education during the decades of apartheid rule. Changes in the curriculum, in the methods of governance and funding included in the Outcomes Based National Qualification Framework, Curriculum 2005 and the South African Schools Act make additional demands on teachers and emphasise the need for further training.
