University Of South Africa Faculty Of Education Qualifications

Formal qualifications

Formal qualifications refer to those qualifications that are subsidised by the Department of Higher Education and Training, and therefore offered under the DHET policies and legislation. The following formal qualifications are offered by the college:

Qualification information for everyone planning to start a new qualification:

• Undergraduate degrees, higher certificates and higher diplomas, and postgraduate certificates
• Honours degrees and postgraduate diplomas
• Master’s & doctoral degrees

Qualification information for successful applicants and re-registering students:

The qualification information for the  registration is not yet available.

Short Learning Programmes (non-formal qualifications)

Short Learning Programmes offered by Unisa focus on “just in time” and “just enough” learning to meet a specific learning need identified by society. This need can focus on enabling access to other Short Learning Programmes or to improve access to the study of formal qualifications at Unisa, or it can address a specific need in the workplace.

Short Learning Programmes can update or broaden skills and knowledge in a specific area to enable life-long learning. In this manner, Short Learning Programmes assist students with their continuing professional development by upgrading their skills and knowledge in newly developed areas or by sharing the results of research.

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)

During your lifetime, you will have acquired various skills, competencies and experiences. This learning – which may have taken place outside of formal education and training – is valuable regardless of where or when it was obtained. You may have acquired skills or knowledge from a combination of training conducted while at work, experience you gained in the workplace, short courses or from community work in a relevant field.

RPL permits you to gain credits within formal certificate, diploma and degree qualifications offered by Unisa based on the level and extent of your knowledge. Your prior learning will be measured against specified prescribed learning outcomes.

Educational research focusing on schools

Currently there are 26 Community Engagement (research) projects taking place across CEDU. The first grouping is those projects which are related to school management, governance and leadership, the next group are the projects related to gateway subjects and teacher development. These will feed into the development of the Teacher Centres, another CEDU project jointly embarked on with the Department of Basic Education (DBE). The third cluster of projects is related to Inclusive Education for which a new Centre of Excellence is going to be established at Unisa. The fourth group are those projects which are related to Early Childhood Development.

In the centre of the four groups or quadrants lies the 500 schools project which covers all these aspects. By means of the 500 Schools project much research information is being gathered, the outcomes of which will feed back into developing better practices at the schools and in how we train teachers, also at the teacher centres. The research is done together with the teachers who co-construct the knowledge about their situation and together they find ways of improving teaching and learning.

More information on some of these projects:

• The 500 Schools research project investigates the underlying causes of under-performance in grades three and six with a view to developing an intervention approach
• The Dynamics of Violence in Schools Project, has been embarked on jointly by the United Kingdom, Brazil, Pakistan and South Africa. The aim of the project is to facilitate international comparison of school violence through the generation of school-based indicators of violence and of security measures
• The Vhembe Schools Project focuses on increasing learner performance in National Senior Certificate Examinations
• The Early Childhood Development (ECD) Outreach Intervention is aimed at developing an understanding of the environment surrounding African, coloured and Indian students and investigates what the root causes are for the low success rate in BEd Foundation Phase and PGCE Foundation Phase courses
• The Growing ECD Teachers in Rural Areas project is aimed at attracting and recruiting 100 young black females to register for a four-year Bachelor of Education degree in Foundation Education. The recruitment process will target learners in rural schools that have a good Grade 12 results
• Ilima Lemfundo seeks to improve the teaching of indigenous languages in poorly performing schools
• The Science Outreach in KwaZulu-Natal project aims to empower science teachers in rural areas through face-to-face contact sessions
• An investigation into the teaching of science and mathematics to students in schools for the blind intends to evolve mathematics and science education for visually impaired learners
• The Analyses of Mathematics Teacher Professional Development Programmes cross-continental collaborative study will analyse teacher professional development programmes with a view to improving the quality of these
• A community project focused on the training of facilitators for persons living with hearing loss, which is aimed at developing a short learning programme in cooperation with the National Institute for the Deaf.