Criteria and Minimum Standards for the B Ed

2006

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Programme Purpose

The B Ed is a 480 NQF credit, Level 6 qualification. The Norms and Standards for Educators (February, 2000) specifies that:

The learner will have strong practical and foundational competence with the reflexive competence to make judgements in a wide context. The qualification is intended for candidates seeking a focused teaching degree with strong subject and educational theory competence.

The B Ed is thus an initial qualification for educators in schools. Teachers are members of a profession whose definitive aim is to enable systematic learning. In order to prepare prospective teachers for this comprehensive role, a B Ed programme should:

• Develop and consolidate both subject knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge.
• Cultivate a practical understanding of teaching and learning in a diverse range of South African schools, in relation to educational theory, phase and/or subject specialisation, practice and policy.
• Foster self-reflexivity and self-understanding among prospective teachers.
• Nurture commitment to the ideals of the teaching profession and an understanding of teaching as a profession.
• Develop the professional dispositions and self-identity of students as teachers.
• Develop students as active citizens and enable them to develop the dispositions of citizenship in their learners.
• Promote and develop the dispositions and competences to organize learning among a diverse range of learners in diverse contexts.

It is assumed that students who achieve the exit level outcomes will be competent novice teachers who will still need time, experience and appropriate support to develop as fully-fledged extended professionals.