Teachers in South Africa

The overall aim of the Teacher Development Summit is to facilitate effective system-wide teacher development that will lead to sustainable improvement in the quality of teaching and learning in classrooms and schools. The outcome of the summit will be a declaration that contains a set of recommendations regarding and commitments to a national plan for teacher education and development.

South African vice-chancellors warned the government to expect more students to drop out, following the shocking results of pilot national benchmark tests.

How can distance learning become more student-centred? Dr Mpine Elizabeth Makoe, University of South Africa (UNISA), has been preoccupied with this question for several years. In a long-term study she conducted, she found that isolated students have a need for informal support that is often neglected in distance education. This has led her to investigate on how MXit, a popular South African instant messaging system, can help to fill the gap and drive collaborative eLearning in an attractive, age-appropriate manner.