School Foundations: The Role of Initial Teacher Education in South African Primary Schooling

Nick Taylor with Irene Pampallis

Product Information

Categories:

Africa, Coming Soon, Education, Non-Fiction, South Africa

Format:

229 x 152mm

Pages:

200pp

ISBN-13:

978-0-7969-2730-9

Publish Year:

2026

Rights:

World Rights

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List of tables

List of figures

List of case studies

List of Acronyms

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

The origins of inequality in South Africa’s primary schools

Chapter 2

Selection for the Bachelor of Education

Chapter 3

Knowledge and skills in the Bachelor of Education

Chapter 4

Teaching practice

Chapter 5

Teacher supply: Size and shape

Chapter 6

Teacher quality revisited

References

Interviews

About the authors

Index

Why are so many South African children leaving the early grades unable to read or do basic arithmetic and what does this say about how we train their teachers? This book tackles that question head-on. It provides a thorough investigation of South Africa’s Initial Teacher Education system, examining how teachers who specialise in Foundation and Intermediate Phase teaching are selected, trained, and prepared for the classroom. A central concern is equity: the book exposes the troubling gap between how literacy and numeracy are taught in schools serving poor children versus those serving middle-class children, and traces that gap back to weaknesses in teacher preparation. Moving through student recruitment, curriculum design, and phase specialisation, the book builds toward a bold, integrated set of recommendations and a call to action for teacher educators, policymakers, regulators, and funders to work in concert toward a stronger, more equitable primary school teaching force.

Nick Taylor spent 10 years teaching math and science at high school level before serving as Subject Advisor, Mathematics in the Soweto region of the Department of Education and Training. He led the non-profit organisation, JET Education Services from 1994 to 2010, where he continues to serve as Senior Research Fellow. Nick holds a doctorate in Math Ed from University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Wits) and has written three books, edited a fourth and published numerous research papers and book chapters on school reform and teacher education.

Irene Pampallis is a PhD candidate and sessional instructor in the School of Education at Wits, where she also tutors and lectures pre-service primary mathematics teachers. Her research focuses on South African teachers’ geographical preferences, particularly preservice teachers’ readiness to teach in rural schools. She is affiliated with the Research on Socioeconomic Policy (RESEP) group at Stellenbosch University, where her work addresses teacher education admissions policies, job satisfaction, and career plans.