Cape Town - The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) wants to see more books written by South African authors prescribed as setworks for pupils.
Following its national congress the union said it would convene a conference to review the setworks prescribed to pupils up to matric level and “set criteria that will be biased to African setwork books”.
Sadtu spokeswoman Nomusa Cembi said some of the prescribed setworks were written by local authors but the union wanted more. “It will be more relevant to their lives. South African authors need to be given more exposure.”
She said the union was not saying that “the classics” should be ignored.
During the four-day conference the union also reaffirmed its position that history, specifically the teaching of South African history, should be made a compulsory subject at all schools.
It also wanted the annual national assessments (ANA), which test pupils’ numeracy and literacy skills, to be written every three years and not annually.
“ANA should not be abused to label teachers and schools, thereby demoralising and deprofessionalising them,” the union said.
Elijah Mhlanga, spokesman for the Department of Basic Education, said the department had developed national catalogues for grades 1 to 12, and for books to be approved and listed in the catalogues they had to meet certain criteria.
This included that all the text should be suitable for South African pupils in a diverse society, and promote social transformation.
He said the department was developing a new catalogue for Further Education and Training (grades 10 to 12) literature setworks, which would be used at schools from 2016.
Most of the authors in the approved national catalogues were South African authors.
“We really appreciate Sadtu’s input on these matters as they can only enrich the department’s process toward delivering quality education in the country.”
Annette Lovemore, the DA’s spokeswoman on basic education, said the party agreed with Sadtu that the ANA were not being used as they should be – “as a diagnostic tool, uncovering the precise areas of learning struggles, and as a platform for the development of strategies to address shortcomings”.
It also agreed with Sadtu that teachers and schools were being labelled as “underperforming” on the basis of the test results of their pupils.
However, the tests should not be scrapped, said Lovemore.
“These assessments are essential. They are providing the closest thing to the truth with respect to the state of education in South Africa.”
Cape Argus