Teacher Graduate Production in South Africa

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The quality of any national education system depends on its teachers. In recent years in South Africa, teacher supply has become a matter of national concern. This monograph examines changes in enrolment and graduation patterns of education students at higher education institutions which are pivotal suppliers of especially the initial professional education of teachers, but also the continuing professional development of practising teachers. The study is based on an uninterrupted time series of institutional data from 1995/to 2004, which supports a uniquely fine-grained analysis of long-term teacher-graduate demographic trends that impact the present. Major emerging trends are the diminishing participation of young African women enrolled for the initial professional education of teachers in the post-millennium period and the fact that access to teacher education study is in predominantly urban universities. The study serves as a foundation for further research on questions of teacher supply and teacher quality, such as the degree to which a bursary scheme recently launched by the National Department of Education will reinvigorate interest and participation in initial teacher education. This monograph is part of the Teacher Education in South Africa series. The series documents a wide-ranging set of research projects on teacher education conducted by the Education, Science and Skills Development research programme within the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), as part of a consortium of research partners. A comprehensive investigation of the dynamics shaping the professional development of educators, the series provides important reading for educationists, academics and policy-makers.

Tables and figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
Executive summary
Abbreviations and acronyms

1 Introduction

2 Background and literature review
Literature on attraction to train as a teacher
Emphasis on functions of recruitment, attrition and retention, but neglect of attraction in the literature
Career decision-making processes and enrolment in teacher training
Teaching and the labour market
Changing labour-market conditions impact on who is prepared to become a teacher
Pathways of teachers from training to the labour market in South Africa

3 Data sources
Transformation in the higher education sector and analytic continuity

4 Analysis of data
Education enrolment
Education graduates
Graduation rate and throughput rate
Enrolments, graduates and graduation rates with reference to population group
Gender distribution of enrolment, graduates and graduation rate
Gender and population group (nested) of student enrolment and graduates
Postgraduate enrolments and graduations
Enrolment and graduates by province
Enrolment and graduates by qualification type
Enrolment by age
Financial support through NSFAS
Graduate production for IPET
HIV/AIDS and teacher supply

5 Conclusion
Initiatives by the Department of Education
The critical impact of spatial location on teacher supply in South Africa
Young women and declining entry into initial teacher training

APPENDIX A: Methodology
APPENDIX B: List of CESMs for education study fields
APPENDIX C: Analysis of enrolment in education subfields, 19952004

References

Andrew Paterson was a research director in the Education, Science and Skills Development research programme at the time when the research for this monograph took place. He is now a senior researcher at the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

Fabian Arends is a research specialist in the Education, Science and Skills Development research programme at the HSRC.