'We don't want to teach little kids': Grades R to 3 teachers

The country's universities are investigating why African school-leavers do not want to teach children aged between five and nine.

Teaching grades R to 3 - according to academic experts in the field - is seen as a low-paying job akin to baby-sitting.

Universities this week said African trainee teachers were opting to teach high school pupils, instead of their younger counterparts.

Professor Maureen Robinson, dean of education at Cape Peninsula University of Technology, said African students perceived foundation-phase teaching to be a low-status career.

"There's not sufficient recognition of the intellectual challenges associated with such a position. It's actually a very demanding degree."

A snap survey at four universities by the Sunday Times found that only 15 out of the 324 teachers who graduated with a teaching degree specialising in the foundation phase were African.

Dr Zuki Gwekwa, a lecturer in Xhosa at Cape Peninsula University of Technology, said the black community had always viewed those teaching young children as being "stupid" because they taught children how to count and read.

"It was not seen as part of education, but viewed as kindergarten or a place where you could send your children while you were at work - and that perception is still there."

Gwekwa said it was a cause for concern that so few African students were graduating in the foundation phase because mother-tongue education was official policy in grades R to 3.

"When our pupils get to grade 6, they do badly because they have no foundation. Our grade R to 3 pupils are being taught in English, and we need people who can teach in African languages," she said.

In a bid to boost the low numbers, all foundation-phase teachers would be expected to have a conversational command of an African language within the next few years.

This forms part of new requirements for teacher qualifications gazetted this week.

According to a document of the Department of Higher Education and Training, 1275 students were expected to have graduated in foundation-phase teaching at the end of 2009. Only 168 were African students.

The shortage is being described as "close to a national crisis" and is being addressed through an initiative by the departments of higher education and basic education.

Part of a three-year programme funded by the European Union to the tune of R141-million, the initiative seeks to improve the status and image of teaching young children.

From next year, at least 200 African pupils from rural areas will be offered bursaries, worth R60-million over four years, to specialise in foundation-phase teaching.

The programme also aims to increase the number of universities that offer the foundation-phase degree from 14 to 20 institutions by 2014.

The Department of Higher Education said producing more African language foundation-phase teachers wa s a "critical area".

African foundation-phase teachers who qualified at the end of last year included:

Two from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology;

Eight from the University of KwaZulu-Natal;

Two from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University; and

Three from the University of Pretoria.

None of the foundation-phase teachers who graduated from the University of the Free State were African.

Both the University of Stellenbosch and Johannesburg's first cohort of African foundation-phase students are in their second year and are expected to graduate in two years' time.

The University of Stellenbosch has 10 African students in their first year and two in their second year, and the University of Johannesburg has 200 enrolled at its Soweto campus, including 43 in their second year.

The University of Cape Town and Rhodes do not offer the foundation-phase qualification.

Professor Hasina Ebrahim, head of the school of social science and language education at the University of the Free State, said there was a conscious effort to increase enrolment of African students, adding that its QwaQwa campus had registered 25 students in its foundation-phase programme, which was introduced this year.

Dr Whitfield Green, the director of teacher education at the Department of Higher Education and Training, said research was being conducted jointly by the universities of Pretoria and KwaZulu-Natal and the Tshwane and Central universities of technology to find out "why we are struggling to attract quality entrants, especially African school-leavers".