Practical skills for teacher-interns

Historic Durban school Inanda Seminary has teamed up with the Zenex Foundation to launch a pilot teacher-interns project in eight rural primary schools.

Launched yesterday, the project will see 12 teacher-interns studying towards Bachelor of Education degrees through Unisa placed at primary schools in Ndwedwe, north of Durban.

The Zenex Foundation is an independent trust established in 1995 to deliver projects in mathematics, science and language education across the country.

The teacher-interns programme has been run successfully in independent schools, including Inanda Seminary, for many years.

• Teacher-interns to assist at KZN government schoolsHistoric Durban school‚ Inanda Seminary‚ has teamed up with the Zenex Foundation to launch a pilot teacher-interns project in eight rural primary schools.

The teacher-interns are embedded in the school, where they are monitored by experienced teachers, and observe and experience good quality teaching and learning while completing their formal studies.

Inanda Seminary and the foundation have taken up the challenge from the Department of Basic Education to see if the model of pre-service teacher training can work in a public school space.

Cathy Bean, manager of Khanyisa Inanda Community Project at Inanda Seminary, said: "This Ndwedwe programme is seen as a pilot project and will provide valuable insight into taking such a project to scale.

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"It is our vision to train and grow inspired, high-quality, well-equipped teachers from disadvantaged backgrounds through hands-on, contextualised and school-based teacher professional development, thus raising the quality of teaching and learning in schools."

The programme is an expansion of the Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa Maths and English Internship Programme to place 10 teacher-interns in public schools for the period 2015 to 2018.