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“I’m not teaching children anymore — I’m teaching the Annual Teaching Plan,” Rendani, a Foundation phase teacher, told us in quiet resignation. “I have passion for this thing, but I think I’m tired. I am not better than when I entered the system,” she added. It was hard to hear and equally difficult to say. […]

In Cape Town, a child living on the Cape Flats does not always wake up to the certainty of safe passage to school. Gang violence, poverty and systemic inequality shape whether learning can even begin. Classrooms are disrupted not by bombs, but by bullets, hunger and fear. I think of a pupil I taught, Kaylin. […]

Youth month celebrates the activism of young people, but teachers have been organised activists since the Teachers League of South Africa was founded in 1913. It is time to acknowledge the role of teachers in building our nation  South Africa observes Youth month in June to honour the Soweto Uprising of 1976, when thousands of black learners courageously […]

It’s no secret that we have poor education outcomes with four out of five Grade 4 learners unable to read for meaning in any language of this country. Teachers are often blamed; their attitudes, outdated and inefficient pedagogical practices, and poor content knowledge are considered key contributors to poor education outcomes in lower quintile schools. […]

By Andisiwe Hlungwane and Mienke Steytler The impact of COVID-19 on the South African education system is indisputable and, as schools reopen today, the Teachers’ Change Agent Network (Teachers CAN) believes that the opportunity for change lies with teachers. Teachers have always held the future of children in their hands, but never has this been […]