‘Better teacher training’ can fix SA’s reading crisis

Training of primary-school teachers needs urgent reform if every SA child is to read fluently by the age of 10, the latest assessment from the 2030 Reading Panel warns.

The panel, chaired by former deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, was established in 2022 to advise the government on how to improve children’s poor reading skills, which present a major obstacle to their success at school.

A staggering 81% of grade 4 children were unable to read for meaning in any language, and 27% of them could not read at all, according to the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. Children start grade R the year they turn six and, assuming they progress each year, turn 10 in grade 4.

Improving initial teacher training was a key aspect of fixing SA’s reading crisis, said Sipumelele Lucwaba, author of a briefing document by the Reading Panel. Universities admit too many high school graduates with a poor academic record into BEd degrees, offer inadequate training on how to teach children to read, and do not provide enough supervised training in the classroom, she said.

Aspiring teachers enter universities with some of the lowest maths and language skills among the study body, and graduate ill-prepared to teach these subjects, the report says. It cites a 2018 study that tested BEd students in their first and final years on primary-school maths test questions and found they had made virtually no progress in mastering skills they were expected to impart to learners.

The average score for first-year BEd students was 52% and after four years of full-time study it was 54%, according to the study, published in the African Journal of Research in Maths, Science and Technology Education.

More than a quarter (29%) of aspirant teachers who wrote the national benchmark tests in 2019 scored at the most basic level and would likely face serious learning challenges with degree-level studies, the report says, citing research by the Centre for Educational Testing and Placement.

Universities need to introduce stricter admission requirements for BEd degrees and dedicate at least a quarter of the curriculum to teaching reading, combined with increased practical experience in the classroom, the report says.

JET Education Services senior research fellow Nick Taylor said improving initial teacher training at universities would help break the vicious cycle of academically weak students graduating without the skills they needed to be effective teachers.

“Because of the poor image of schools and teachers in the public eye, teacher education is a fallback choice for many matriculants and, as a result, the academically weakest matriculants enter education faculties (which) struggle to make up the backlogs in languages and mathematics exhibited by these students. On graduation, many inadequately educated teachers enter schools, providing poor education to their learners, thus repeating the vicious cycle,” he said.

Universities needed to reform their curricula to ensure aspirant primary school teachers acquired the knowledge and skills to teach reading and maths, and apply a more rigorous approach to selecting students, he said.

Education faculties should also increase the duration of students’ teaching practice, Taylor said.

kahnt@businesslive.co.za