Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill, 2009

1. Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill, 2009 SACE 15 February 2011

2. INTRODUCTION • SACE is a professional body that aims to enhance the status of the teaching profession through: • registration of professionally qualified and competent educators, • management and quality assurance of registered educators’ continuing professional development, and • safeguarding of standards of professional ethics.

3. Legislative and Policy Mandate • SACE is established in terms of the SACE Act no.31 of 2000 • The SACE Act mandate Council to • Register educators; • Advise the Ministries of Education and the profession as a whole on professional matters; • Promote educators’ professional development, and • Ensure that they adhere to the Code of Professional Ethics

4. Legislative and Policy Mandate • SACE gets its other mandate from the National Policy Framework on Teacher Education and Development (NPFTED), April 2007 • The Policy Framework mandate SACE to manage and implement the Continuing Professional Teacher Development (CPTD) System • The Policy Framework stipulates that the Department of Education (now Basic Education) will resource the management and implementation of the CPTD system by SACE

5. Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill • Focus Areas • Professional Development • CPTD System and its Resourcing

6. Professional Development • We need to start by clarifying the professional development roles of SACE because it plays a different professional development role from the Department of Basic Education • SACE is not a provider of professional development and therefore the provisioning of professional development for teachers is NOT one of its functions

7. Professional Development • The Department of Basic Education, at national and provincial levels, has the responsibility of ensuring that teachers are offered various professional development programmes and activities • SACE, on the other hand plays a role of developing the profession as a whole. • Part of this role involves, amongst other things, promoting and facilitating professional development, managing and implementing the CPTD system, monitoring the uptake of professional development by teachers, and identifying the needs of the profession

8. Professional Development • In the light of the SACE professional development background provided, section 17(iv) of the Bill needs to be amended to read as follows: • “must promote the in-service training of educators” • We are also making a submission to add a new sub-section (17(v) that reads as follows: • Must manage and implement a Continuing Professional Teacher Development (CPTD) system which will be resourced and supported by the Department of Education, as contemplated in the National Policy Framework on Teacher Education and Development, April, 2007

9. Funding Of CPTD System • Section 25A of the Bill should be amended and read as follows: • “the specific employer of educators as contemplated in section 3 of the Employment of Educators Act 76 of 1998 will be responsible for supporting and funding the management and implementation of the CPTD System”.