UKZN Collaborates in Colloquium Aimed at Advancing Education

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The UKZN School of Education recently collaborated with the Department of Basic Education (DBE), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the European Union (EU), and the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) to disseminate REALS SA implementation lessons and shed light on responses to educational crises.

The REALS SA programme was designed to respond to the COVID-19 crisis resulting in learning losses in schools and focuses on schools with children from impoverished backgrounds, mainly in KwaZulu- Natal, the Eastern Cape, and Limpopo.

Professor Labby Ramrathan of UKZN’s School of Education organised the event according to the four strands of the REALS SA intervention programme, namely: a response to the reading challenges experienced during COVID-19, the school leadership sub-stream focusing on building school leadership within crises, the assessment for learning sub-programme responding to the challenges of assessments post-COVID-19, and the curriculum recovery sub-programme to address learning losses during COVID-19.

Ms Muriel Mafico of UNICEF reflected on the disruptions that learners experienced where the necessary adaption and adjustments had to be made to ensure the continuation of the syllabus, causing a huge change within the learning system. However, as part of innovations, learning materials were distributed via communication channels such as WhatsApp and TV programmes, thereby being accommodative to the conditions of all children.

Said Mafico, ‘During COVID-19, almost 650 000 children were out of school, and this was the highest number in two decades and it speaks to the massive disruption that happened during that time.’

As part of redeeming the syllabus, Mr Thomas Tiedemann, EU Head of Section Governance and Social Sector, said they were expected to use emergency procedures to immediately procure and distribute books to learners who were suffering from these interruptions in schooling in Quintile 1 to 3.

Professor Thabo Msibi, Dean and Head of the School of Education at UKZN highlighted that Matric result’s negative shift has been demonstrating the need for action.

So consequently, he focused on the advancement of education, particularly African languages teaching emphasising the importance of teaching children in a language that they can understand.

Msibi also shared his School’s involvement in advancing literacy, saying that various projects are on the radar such as the establishment of a centre for African languages which will work towards empowering teachers to improve their teaching skills, an isiZulu corpus as well as other projects that are consistent with the educational plan of the University. ‘Significant inroads were made towards the improvement of literacy and developing African languages for teaching and learning,’ he added.

He affirmed that linguists and foundation-based specialists will work together in developing a community outreach project that will be focused on responding to the education crisis.

Words: Sinoyolo Mahlasela

Photographs: Albert Hirasen