Teacher Professional Learning
The main objective of the TPL component is to offer academic professional learning opportunities and support to school and office-based educators to enhance their academic knowledge and pedagogical skills and promote implementation and critical reflection within their educational context, with the ultimate aim for educators to not only improve their qualifications but to support their learners to perform at their maximum potential.
"Forward together. Sonke siya phambili".
SUNCEP places sustainability at the core of its initiatives, firmly believing that teachers should ultimately lead educational development within their schools. To this end, SUNCEP provides Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) initiatives, which run concurrently with or independently from supplementary learner support processes.
These include full qualification courses, such as the Advanced Diploma in Education programmes, and accredited short courses for current teachers in Mathematics, Natural, Physical, and Life Sciences. Additionally, SUNCEP offers courses in Educational Leadership and School Management for education officials, including district advisors, school principals, deputy principals, and department heads.
These professional learning courses are delivered in a blended format, combining face-to-face contact sessions, telematics sessions, and interactive e-lessons, or fully online. These tools facilitate communication between SUNCEP and teachers, fostering professional learning communities that can sustain themselves post-project. Mentoring is a key part of the post-teaching process.
The Stellenbosch University Centre for Pedagogy (SUNCEP) supports the Department of Basic Education’s Integrated Strategic Planning Framework for Teacher Education and Development in South Africa, 2011–2025 by contributing to the development of educational leadership and teacher professional learning to deliver more successful learners to the country and specifically into the higher education sector.
This is supported and achieved by offering the Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) programmes and specialised accredited Short Courses that focus on the enhancement of content pedagogical knowledge and skills in areas identified as being in need of improvement.
These courses are offered to currently serving teachers and education officials in Educational Leadership and Management, Mathematics, Natural and Physical and Life Sciences. Utilising a practice-based teacher professional learning approach, which consists of elements/components that entails learning that is continuous, content focused, supportive, socially mediated and embodied, the SUNCEP full or short course qualifications are intended to create opportunities for capacity enhancement for currently serving teachers in a specific learning area/subject, by demonstrating focused knowledge and pedagogy in any teaching contexts.
"It is common knowledge—backed by research findings—that teacher quality is one very important factor which has a direct and positive influence on the quality of teaching and learning. "
Academic offerings
Practice-based (PB) professional learning forms the basis of the SUNCEP training philosophy to allow transference of new knowledge and skills from the theory into on-site implementation while suppo