Resumo

TEBID, Ambeck Celyne. Support strategies to assist foundation phase teachers with implementation of inclusive education: A case of selected Johannesburg West schools. IJTL [online]. 2019, vol.14, n.2, pp.108-124. ISSN 2519-5670.

School-based support teams (SBSTs) have been established in full-service and mainstream public schools in South Africa to serve as one of the tools to deal with the challenges teachers faced in implementing inclusive education (IE) daily. Although the SBSTs are working very hard towards strengthening teacher capacity, it can be argued that their hard work does not seem to have any visible quality effect compared to the challenges that teachers have to deal with in schools. This paper focused on support strategies which the SBSTs can use, to assist with practical implementation of inclusive practices in mainstream schools in South Africa. Participants were purposefully drawn from two full-service schools and one mainstream school. Six foundation phase teachers, three principals and three SBST members were interviewed to get different perspectives of the phenomenon under study. The instruments utilised were: semi-structured interviews, document analysis and observation. The data analysis involved scanning, sorting, synthesising, pattern searching and categorising. The findings revealed several support strategies as proposed by teachers including the following: (1) need for change in the way support is channelled; (2) teacher training on specific skills; (3) regulate the pull-out system; (4) SBST meetings and workshops should be properly coordinated; (5) time for teachers and SBST to sit and reflect on practices, and (6) inclusive education should focus on teachers and not on SBST coordinators and learning support educators. The paper concluded that if these support strategies are given attention, teachers rather than learners will be given support on how to address learning difficulties within their classrooms; SBSTs will work in collaboration with the classroom teachers. The overall effect would be that more learners will be supported in real inclusive settings.

Palavras-chave : Foundation Phase; inclusive education; learning difficulties; school-based support teams; teacher support.

        · texto em Inglês     · Inglês ( pdf )