The state of training of high school Mathematics teachers is generally poor throughout the country. The South African Mathematics Foundation’s Advisory Committee on Mathematics (ACM) has initiated a study to determine the status of formal in-service training programmes for in-service mathematics educators in South African High Schools. The study targeted short courses on offer by current Higher Education institutions or NGO’s.
It is common cause that the state of training of high school Mathematics teachers is generally poor throughout the country. It was therefore deemed necessary to assess what is being done in the way of informal upgrading of teachers, in order to devise strategies to improve the situation. Given the amount of time and energy that was spent to initiate, implement and follow-up on responses to the teacher training survey, the study can only conclude that the existing professional skills development programmes (excluding formal HE study programmes) for in-service mathematics teachers are completely inadequate to address the in-service needs of the profession.
Only a few of the Universities and prominent NGO’s in the country have active professional support programmes for in-service mathematics teachers. Most of these programmes are not SACE or HE accredited short learning programmes and are limited in scope and structure to address the multitude of challenges that exist in mathematics education at secondary schools. These challenges include subject content gaps, lack of modern pedagogy skills and lack of relevant ICT skills to teach the CAPS curriculum effectively in the 21st century. Both the nature and scope of existing support programmes for in-service mathematics teachers are offered without any benchmark or coordination amongst service providers.
Professor Werner Olivier, Chairperson of the ACM regards this survey as the first step in what could be a lengthy and much more costly process of determining the full extent of in-service professional training opportunities that exist country-wide. “There are very few structured professional development training programmes that are actively supporting in-service mathematics teachers to cope with a range of challenges that exist in secondary schools. The South African Mathematics Foundation (SAMF) envisages collaborating more closely with other key stakeholders to share practical information about existing professional development programmes for in-service FET mathematics teachers and to conceptualise possible strategies to profile generic priority focus areas of such programmes,” he explained.
