Alternative financing of teacher education in South Africa: Stakeholder affinity

Saba, Namhla

Alternative financing of teacher education in South Africa: Stakeholder affinity

Thesis

2018

Publisher

University Of Cape Town

Department

Research of GSB

Faculty

Faculty of Commerce

Abstract

Adequately prepared quality Maths and Science teachers are crucial to addressing South Africa’s poor learner results and the associated skills development shortages. South Africa has been characterised by dismal and worsening matric SMT results over the past two decades, which jeopardises current and future prospects of a successful transitioning in the fourth industrial revolution. Critically underpinning this dismal performance are teacher quality and quantity. South Africa’s public education sector is known for its ill-prepared and unqualified teachers who struggle specifically with contextual application abilities. While past scholarly research and policy interventions have focused on financing teacher education quantities with considerable success, little if anything has been documented about innovative project financing approaches to quality teacher training, and the potential for wholesale adoption in social entrepreneurship, public-private partnerships in resource constrained contexts. SIBs were identified as a potential complementary finance model mainly due to identified characteristics and associated benefits. A qualitative study was conducted in order to find out how South African stakeholders can navigate the operational and associated financial challenges of developing quality Maths and Science teachers for the public sector. The study, limited to the capacity building dimensions of teacher training in South Africa, endeavored to understand how alternate financing mechanisms could respond to some of the key challenges of developing quality teachers. Interviews were conducted with the relevant participants in a SIB which included Education government representatives, teacher training service providers and private sector financiers. The research identifies that the value of implementing a SIB in teacher training is based on its ability to accommodate heterogeneous outcomes of an alternative holistic teacher training framework. This models strength lies in its reliance on strong partnerships for both implementation and financial outcomes. The SIB model finds its theoretical framework in project finance and has characteristics that can be seen as complementary solutions to the key challenges of developing teachers as well as a potential solution for wholesale implementation. From an operational perspective, the SIB creates a platform for the public educations lack of quality teacher infrastructure to leverage off private education’s quality teacher infrastructure in capacitating current and incoming teachers into the public sector. Thus allowing for the education sectors to collaborate and cross pollinate skills, resources and knowledge for the benefit of boosting the public sectors teacher training implementation capabilities. This ensures that the right skills, competencies and platforms are utilised in tackling challenges emanating from insufficient, irrelevant and unsupported experiential learning. The model also places outcomes at the centre and as a driving force for quality teacher delivery. This encourages stakeholders to earnestly consider quality teacher characteristics and include the associated key performance indicators at the different stages of development. This shifts the focus of teacher training delivery in South Africa to being outcomes driven rather than being inputs focused. This shift has proven to be a more cost effective method of addressing social challenges. From a financial perspective, once the requirements from public and private financial sectors have been met, the model also taps into new capital sources for scaling the implementation of a holistic teacher training model. The additional resources also enables government to introduce social entrepreneurs into education delivery and scale funding innovative preventative teacher training solutions. The PPP model is not without its challenges within the South African teacher education landscape. However conceptually, all the stakeholders appear keen to further engage and explore the merits of the holistic quality teacher framework, representing an emerging opportunity towards collaborative efforts in lure of a common social goal. Factors such as the alignment of objectives amongst stakeholders and additional revenue streams were identified as dominant stakeholder incentives affirming the desire to engage. Meanwhile, factors such as challenges with quantifying and measuring teacher quality, implementation and execution risk, and trust deficit issues were identified as dominant challenges that highlighted stakeholder key reservations with the framework.

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