Behind the scenes at The Eduvation Network

Ever wondered what happens behind the scenes at The Eduvation Network? We chat to Tracey Stewart from Headwise Developments about her involvements in TEN and how her experience has led her to where she is today.

1)  What courses do you provide content for?

• Innovation and its Priority
• Critical Thinking Skills 1 & 2
• You in the Greater Economy
• Present Yourself with Impact
• Whole-School Management Policies
• Learning Barriers and How to Deal Effectively with Them
• Discipline 101 and Effective Classroom Management
• Premature Sexual Experimentation and Teaching Alternatives
• Self-Harm and Providing Alternatives
• Suicide: A Permanent Solution to a Temporary Problem
• Diversity: A Revelation
• Communicating for Real
• Learning Styles and How They Create Learning Barriers
• Discipline in The 21st Century

2) What previous experience has helped you convene/teach this course?

Five years of post-grad research in Communication Pathology and active involvement in the classroom to discover classroom management techniques that work and those that don’t. Additionally, active involvement in maximum-security prison inmates’ rehabilitation programmes over a 12-year period and accreditation with all relevant qualifications authorities and three years of presenting the courses full time.

3) How will teachers benefit from this course?

There is currently ambivalence and frustration amongst teachers. Practical, relevant and up-to-date skills are imparted through these courses to motivate teachers back into their passion for the profession. This will inspire them to exert a willingness to develop erudite and successful young people for a brighter future for all South Africans.

4) What do you enjoy most about being part of The Eduvation Network?

The ease of use of a simple elearning system and the availability and willingness of professional behind-the-scenes staff to assist.

5) Why should Educators choose The Eduvation Network?

The Eduvation Network is a very simple elearning platform to navigate and a cost-effective and enjoyable way to develop professionally.

6) What makes the courses you teach unique?

The courses provide a deeper understanding of human thought, communication and behaviour and are, therefore, able to offer longer-lasting solutions to common challenges.

7) What is your opinion on the state of education in South Africa and how can advanced learning improve this?

My opinion is strongly swayed by fact and the research conducted to support the statistics. The reality is that we have two different education systems in South Africa: a dysfunctional schooling system (75%) and a functional schooling system (25%) which are miles apart in their respective performance. Despite the high spending and many interventions which have been made by the government over the past 20 years, the system remains virtually unchanged. Our government spends 20% of total government expenditure on education of which 78% goes to teachers’ salaries. Yet, the education system continues to propagate, rather than mitigate, inequality. If one is born into a family that is poor, the prospects for social mobility are very slim.

Education is the main driver of social mobility but the system continues to reproduce inequality because there are so few good schools with good teachers. Improving this will require that every teacher has the minimum basic competency in the subjects they teach and the social skills required to bring out the best in every learner. Currently, teacher absenteeism amounts to approximately one month per annum in an already short school year due to stress-induced illness or pure ambivalence.  Educators on all levels urgently require upskilling to narrow this gap and activate positive movement in the economy. The most effective (cost and time) is by means of professional elearning delivered to educators nationally.

8)  Comment on the increasing role of technology in South Africa and how you foresee things changing in the next five years?

Distance education, sophisticated learning management systems and the opportunities for collaboration between partners around the world, will transform education within the next five years. Many of the so-called functional South African schools are already providing their learners with paperless classrooms and this is changing the way teachers teach and learners learn. Many learners in the privileged 25% of functioning schools are not coping with reading, writing and other basic skills. It is also widening the gap between the functioning and under-functioning schools.

Technological advancement and related opportunities, in the ways education can be offered, are increasing and the prospects for narrowing this gap are greater than ever before.  However, technology remains a disruptive innovation and an expensive one. It will remain a core differentiator between the haves and have-nots unless there is substantial attention and investment into it by corporate academic mentors.

9) What is the one thing you have learnt during your time as an educator that you think would benefit other educators?

It’s the little things, in learning, that nobody pays attention to that result in the big things, in life, that everybody wants to have.