STANDARDS AND COMPETENCIES FOR TEACHER DEVELOPMENT THROUGH THE LENS OF A CASE STUDY OF SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION FOR A GREEN ECONOMY IN SOUTH AFRICA

Professor Eureta Rosenberg
Rhodes University, South Africa
e.rosenberg@ru.ac.za

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to the unpacking of teaching and learning in Africa, through a reflection on the African Framework of Standards and Competences for the Teaching Profession (African Union, 2019b). These continental guidelines require African Ministries of Education, regulatory authorities and teacher education partners to respond to the need for environmental and economic sustainability as integral to the norms and standards for teacher education. The paper demonstrates what this might look like in practice, through a case example of a teacher development course in Green Economy and Entrepreneurship, that was offered by university partners to primary and secondary school educators in South Africa, in 2020-2021. The case demonstrates teachers’ approach to Entrepreneurship Day as part of the Grade 7 Economics and Management Sciences school subject. The teaching practices highlighted in the case example demonstrate values like Ubuntu, creativity, environmental sustainability, the strengthening of community bonds as well as the development of academic and life skills. The author proposes that this example of teachers’ practice could well serve as a ‘germ cell’to help us reflect critically on what African sustainability solutions, (social) entrepreneurship and sustainable economic development fo rAfrican contexts may look like.