School of Education - University of Cape Town

The School of Education (SoE) is a postgraduate department located in the new Neville Alexander Building (see below) at lower campus. It operates with both a stream and programme structure which are managed by stream heads and programme convenors respectively.

The School currently offers qualifications in initial teacher education (ITE), continuing professional development (CPD), adult and community education, higher education and educational technology. These qualifications are offered at different levels: postgraduate certificate, postgraduate diplomas (Adult and Community Education, Higher Education Studies, and Educational Technology), honours, masters and PhD level.

As part of its responsiveness to the changing landscape in Schooling, the School has undergone processes of re-curriculation resulting in introducing new qualifications and discontinuing or putting on hold others. For example, the PGCE which is a one-year initial teacher education qualification has currently put on hold its Intermediate Phase (IP) for re-curriculation.

Some of our students are recipients of generous funding from the Ball Family Scholarship and the Funza Lushaka bursaries (subject to T&C). One of the flagship projects of the School is the Newly Qualified Teachers Project (NQT) which addresses the significant attrition rates amongst first year teachers.

The School has a strong research profile and its teaching is research-informed. Seven (7) of its academic staff are rated researchers by the National Research Foundation (NRF). The NRF rating is a valuable tool for measuring the quality of South African researchers against the best in the world.

And two of its academic staff are recipients of Distinguished Teacher Awards (DTA): Mr N Bakker (1988) and Associate Professor J Hardman (2015). The DTA is the highest accolade given to teaching staff at all levels within the university and is a recognition of excellence in teaching.

The research interests of the staff, in which they supervise students and have also published extensively are in the following areas: cognition; curriculum; education policy; history education; language education; mathematics education; philosophy with children; pedagogic practice; science education; sociology of education; and emerging technologies and emerging practices. The School is committed to being an inclusive department and fosters a community of practice for both students and staff.