Staff Reporter
A Cuban delegation spent time in South Africa earlier this month to monitor the training of local teachers in Mathematics and Science.
Following the bilateral agreement between the Department of Basic Education and the Ministry of Education of Cuba in 2016, a monitoring visit by a delegation from Cuba took place from 28 August to 1 September 2023.
As part of the agreement Cuba provided skilled Mathematics and Science specialists to assist in developing training programmes and materials that will benefit subject advisors and teachers to effectively use the Mathematics and Science teaching methods from Cuba.
“What we are tracking is the extent to which more learners can better understand the areas of Mathematics that have been covered and more importantly, how we can increase the number of learners who take up Mathematics, along with the number of teachers who are able to, after the training, improve on the outputs of teaching Mathematics to improve the learners’ performance in this subject,” said Deputy Director-General, Simoné Geyer.
Geyer added that further deliberations were underway to ascertain how Cuba and South Africa can work together to improve teaching in areas such as Early Childhood Development (ECD) and technical subjects that are taught in focus schools.
As a way forward, the Cuban delegation will look at the type of support required for the Cuban specialists who are already assisting in South Africa and how best they can be supported in ensuring that the outcomes of the bilateral agreement are met, and that they are adding value to the South African context of how Mathematics and Science can be taught.
The delegation also visited KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State Provinces, where they received first-hand experience on how the Cuban team is assisting in running teacher training workshops, Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and providing direct support to learners.
The monitoring visit concluded with a debriefing session to ascertain the progress that has been made by the Cuban specialists in these subject areas.
INSIDE EDUCATION
