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Does our matric compare favourably with international standards?

Does our matric compare favourably with international standards?

The replacement of the old Senior Certificate with the new National Senior Certificate (NSC) in 2008 was greeted with considerable suspicion. Once the results of the first cohort was released, various commentators speculated in the press about the standard of the examination and its associated curriculum. Are these fears warranted?

Should principals teach?

Should principals teach?

Until now, principals have been expected to teach in South African schools. The Personnel Administrative Measures (PAM), which, amongst others, set out the job descriptions of principals, state that principals are required to ‘engage in class teaching as per the workload of the relevant post level and the needs of the school’. The education authorities have, however, not enforced this, leaving it to individual schools and principals to decide whether the principal teaches or not. The only time that the issue becomes relevant is for performance appraisal, which includes a criterion which deals with teaching. It is, however, possible for principals to achieve at least a ‘satisfactory’ evaluation despite receiving a 0 for this criterion – and that is all that is needed for the annual progression in salary. It is now being proposed that principals should not be required to teach. This raises the question: Is this a good idea?

Questioning Techniques

A key requirement for successful learning is that teaching should be interactive, i.e. that the learner is active during the process and not just the teacher. One of the most important ways of teaching interactively is to use effective questioning techniques. This is based on brain theories: The consensus among cognitive scientists (since B F Skinner) is that the mind seeks to find meaning, which is done through patterning. To achieve this, the mind must be active during the learning process. Here are some guides regarding successful questioning techniques …

GUEST WHAT!

The National Curriculum Statement indicates clearly that learners must be encouraged to think critically and to engage in problem-solving: v  The Critical Outcomes require learners to ‘identify and solve problems and make decisions using critical and creative thinking’ (p2). v  The ‘kind of learner envisaged’ must ‘demonstrate an ability to think logically and analytically, as [...]

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