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Background: Teacher education programmes often prioritise theory over practical experience, leaving students struggling to connect classroom learning with real-world application. Addressing this gap, a proposed model integrates online coursework with mentored practice-based experiences through full-time placements in selected schools. Aim: The study delves into the experiences of first-year school-based student teachers (SBST) enrolled in a full-time undergraduate online programme aimed at bridging the theory-practice divide. Setting: First-year student teachers in the 2021 and 2022 cohorts (N = 30) placed full time in selected schools participated in the study. Methods: Using an interpretive qualitative research design, data were collected via focus group interviews with first-year student cohorts. Data was analysed using the cultural-historical activity theory combined with the constant comparative method. Results: Two primary findings emerged. Firstly, SBSTs faced difficulties balancing academic requirements between the school and the programme. Secondly, the varying degrees of support from stakeholders within both the programme and school environment influenced the quality and meaningfulness of SBSTs’ learning experiences. Conclusion: The convergence of university and school activity systems revealed tensions and contradictions yet also presented opportunities for expanded learning when coursework and classroom practices aligned. Despite criticisms of universities being overly theoretical, the research indicates that SBSTs prioritise practical experience in school settings, potentially overshadowing the significance of theoretical knowledge. Contribution: This study contributes to knowledge of the challenges faced by student teachers and highlights the need to address these contradictions through open dialogue within teacher education programmes.

Background: Despite large-scale interventions aimed at developing literacy skills, children’s reading competence levels in South Africa continue to remain an area of concern. In addition, the need to prepare learners for the increased demands of a fast-changing world of learning and working is gaining attention in educational policy and practice. Aim: Using a qualitative multi-site case study research design, the authors aimed to explore teachers’ understanding and enactment of scripted literacy lessons that are designed to promote 21st-century competencies. Setting: Five Grade 1 teachers were selected from four schools, three of which are in peri-urban and the other in a township area. Methods: Data were generated in two phases across three teaching cycles. In the first phase, lessons were observed and recorded on video. The second phase consisted of stimulated recall interviews (SRIs) in which teachers commented on their recorded lessons. Results: The findings showed that when teachers had relevant prior knowledge of specific competencies, they were better positioned to leverage these as a basis for their lessons. However, the findings also indicated that teachers’ entrenched methods and ways of thinking were obstacles for change. Conclusion: Training and development opportunities should pay sufficient attention to the practicalities of changing pedagogies and using scripted lesson plans. Contribution: The findings contribute to knowledge on the affordances and challenges when designing training opportunities aimed at integrating 21st-century competencies into scripted literacy lessons.

Mentoring is intended to guide student teachers towards pedagogical decision-making within the complexity of the classroom. In this article we focus on the mathematics mentoring practices of 1 primary school teacher at a university-affiliated teaching school in Johannesburg. The teacher had many years of experience and had undergone some development as a mentor over a period of 5 years. With the research reported on here, we aimed at gaining insight into how the teacher conceptualised her mentoring encounters with student teachers and how this aligned with her mentoring practices and processes. Using a qualitative case study design and multiple methods of data collection, the findings point to the mentor teacher making substantial progress towards functioning as an expert teacher. However, the data confirmed a fluctuation in enactment of mentoring between experienced and expert teacher, in both generalised and subject-specific contexts. The implications of the findings are relevant for the thousands of school teachers who mentor student teachers and novice teachers, particularly in primary schools where teachers are often generalists and not subject specialists. The findings could also inform guidelines and policy briefs for training by higher education institutions, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and the South African Council of Educators in order to support the development of expert mentor teachers.

Background: The measures imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in early 2020 meant that many higher education institutions (HEIs) had to shift rapidly to remote teaching and learning (RTL). Given the unique demands of teacher education programmes, the question of the extent to which RTL and similar modes of teaching and learning are suited to the preparation of primary school teachers to teach in South African schools is an important one. Aim: The aim of the study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of teacher educators (TEs) towards this rapid shift to RTL. Setting: The study took place in one department in a faculty of education in an urban South African university. Methods: This study took the form of a qualitative case study. Data was gathered by means semistructured individual interviews and focus group discussions. Results: Firstly, it was found that mixed responses to the change to RTL at the outset gave way to a general consensus about the long-term value of blended learning. Secondly, it was found that the change to RTL had a positive effect on TEs’ teaching, given increased familiarity with, and integration of, technology, as well as the accompanying revisions to both pedagogy and curricula. Thirdly, the data showed that TEs perceived RTL as limiting because of two main factors, namely students’ lack of information and communication technology (ICT) resources and because, in their estimation, teacher education uniquely requires contact teaching. Finally, it was found that the change to RTL created additional psychological stressors for both students and staff. Conclusion: Based on this study’s findings, the authors advocate for more recognition and support for the emotional work performed by TEs during times of transition. They also argue that TEs should be given more responsibility in moulding blended teaching and learning practices according to their experiences of the successes and challenges of RTL.

Background: Studies in South Africa show a high prevalence of male caregiver absence in the lives of children under the age of 9 years. In this respect, foundation phase teachers are well positioned to provide input and shed light on how schools can contribute towards improving male caregiver involvement in their children’s early education. Aim: This study aimed to explore foundation phase teachers’ views of the involvement of male caregivers in the education and development of young children. Setting: The paper reports on the qualitative phase of a mixed methods study conducted in three township schools near Johannesburg. Methods: Focus group interviews involving a sample of 17 foundation phase teachers were conducted in three schools. An iterative coding process within a generic qualitative data analysis approach was carried out to articulate overarching ideas and themes. Results: The results highlight how teachers’ taken-for-granted gendered assumptions about the roles of females and males in the education and development of foundation phase children and about the children’s care arrangements influence how they communicate with parents, unconsciously alienating male caregivers. Conclusion: Although teachers had not considered the role of male caregivers in the early years of children’s education, they acknowledged that such an undertaking would be beneficial to the learners and the school. Therefore, the authors argue for training aimed at capacitating foundation phase teachers with the essential competencies necessary to galvanise and increase meaningful involvement of male caregivers in the education of learners in pre-service and in-service teacher professional development.

This article reports on the mentoring of foundation phase teachers and their development of disciplinary-specific knowledge, particularly how the practicum provides a space for mathematics content knowledge (MCK) and mathematics pedagogical content knowledge (MPCK) for student teachers, given the generalist knowledge base of many primary school teacher mentors. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with two Grade 2 mentors and focus group interviews with third-year student teachers in an urban university setting. A two-step process of analysis comprising open-ended coding, followed by a form of deductive coding, within a framework derived from literature on the development of MCK and MPCK, lead to two main findings. Firstly, mentors might have hindered student teachers’ development of MCK and MPCK, thus impacting on the building of comprehensive conceptual models of good mathematics teaching practice. Secondly, the efficacy of the university-led training is questioned. We therefore recommend that greater emphasis be placed on the development of subject-specific mentoring practices, especially in scarce-skills areas such as mathematics, and argue for a set of standards for mathematics-specific mentoring practices in South African primary school teacher education.

This paper explores novice foundation phase teachers’ descriptions of their experiences in the liminal stage between being a student teacher and entering the professional world of the early grade classroom. The term “liminality” was popularised by anthropologist Turner (1969), building on the early work of Van Gennep (1960), in his work on rites of passage. The fluidity of the liminal period is characterised by instability and uncertainty with a diversity of factors affecting different novice teachers. In a generic qualitative study, based on individual, semi-structured interviews with 10 participants, findings show that the new teachers appeared to be somewhat unrealistic and/or unprepared in their expectations of what they would encounter in this period. The novices struggled to settle into the practice of a school classroom and largely blame the inadequacy of their teacher education programmes. They also cite the demands of tracking their young charges’ learning and the lack of support from senior teachers as compounding factors for the difficulties they faced. These issues may have serious consequences for the retention of teachers in this important phase of schooling and therefore require the attention of both teacher education and school managers.

The article reports on the University of Johannesburg's (UJ) efforts at offering a practice-based teacher education program in partnership with a university-affiliated school (a “teaching school”) with a view to developing inquiry-oriented novice teachers. The research aimed at exploring what it takes to develop a “learningplace” (Conway et al., 2014) conducive to student teachers' development of professional practice knowledge and the role of mentoring in this regard. A two-phase process of generating data was used. In the first phase, the published research on the university-affiliated school was analyzed, using qualitative content analysis to look for patterns across the historical unfolding of the findings of these papers. In phase two a questionnaire was administered involving final year student teachers in the teacher education program. The research shows that a teaching school, if integrated into the program design and delivery, provides a rich practice learning site for student teachers. In addition, mentoring in cognitive apprenticeship mode could indeed be a powerful contributor to student teachers' professional development. However, the overall programme design is decisive. The preparation of teachers with strong professional practice knowledge requires attention to four interrelated aspects of program design, namely program identity, organizational structures, curriculum, and teacher education pedagogy. Addressing these aspects in an integrated manner would be difficult without working closely with one or more partnership schools.

In this study, we examined student teachers’ learning during their teaching placement period in Finland and South Africa. The setting of the inquiry in both countries was a ‘teaching’ school, affiliated to a university teacher education programme. The teaching school is also referred to as an educational innovation that was transferred from the Finnish context to the South African context. Data were collected through an interview protocol. The findings show that the students, like many of their counterparts in different parts of the world, focused on teaching tools and methods as well as classroom management as a gateway to their teaching career. The extended teaching placement period at both the university teaching schools was expected to yield some findings about the intersection of teaching practice and its supporting theories because of the close collaboration of the schools and the universities. Some of the findings satisfied this expectation while other parts did not, confirming that initial teacher education may be regarded as a platform for learning to be teachers, but it has its own limits even in a pedagogical ‘laboratory’. The transfer of the educational innovation was regarded as successful.

This article proposes that the 'teaching/practice schools' formally affiliated to initial teacher education programmes at universities, can be utilised more optimally as research sites by student teachers. The argument is put forward with reference to the role that such schools have played historically in teacher education in the United States (US), and more recently, in the successful Finnish teacher education system, in which research is highly valued as a requisite part of a teaching qualification. The authors propose that the single component of these schools, which has historically distinguished them from schools for work integrated learning (WIL), is that they are also research spaces and have retained some of the 'lab' character of earlier schools, such as the one established by John Dewey. In such schools, the authors argue, students learn to be reflective practitioners by positioning themselves as researchers, who reflect on practice in a research-rich environment. In a pilot study, the authors found that university and school personnel hold different views about research in the schools. The article recommends that careful consideration be given to the research function in these public schools as part of teacher training.

This article reports on students’ experiences of learning to work together in a childhood teacher education programme at a university in South Africa. We were interested in how students from diverse backgrounds, with little shared understanding of a model or framework for collaborative working, would find their footing and learn how to operationalise care, accountability and reflexivity through engaging in group work as part of their service learning activities. A cross section of student data, from first year to third year, was analysed using qualitative methods of data analysis. The main findings were that the incremental integration of service learning, with fixed student groupings over three years, was a catalyst for the gradual formation of professional student learning communities. The student struggles with group relationships helped them address their cultural, linguistic and gendered assumptions about each other. Lastly, we found that relatively fixed nature of the student groupings over a three year period encouraged deep reflection about ideas of care, community and social responsibility.

In the context of the foundation phase, where women tend to dominate, the increasing numbers of male students entering teaching programmes for this phase of schooling has generated considerable praise, as well as criticism. This paper explores the views of two first-year foundation phase (FP) student cohorts at a Johannesburg university about male teachers in the FP. Student responses to two open-ended questions formed the data for this study, with qualitative content analysis procedures used to make sense thereof. Findings indicate an uncomfortable tension between the 'good,' the 'bad', and the 'ugly' in student perspectives of male teachers in the FP, where the 'good' is reflected in recognition of the valuable role of males in countering the effects of absentee fathers; the 'bad' in the various reasons provided for male's unsuitability as teachers of young children; and the 'ugly' in the dominant association ofmales with the perception ofa threat ofsexual abuse and molestation, much of which is attributed to increased media coverage and public awareness of abuse in schools. The paper concludes with a discussion of the ramifications hereof for teacher education and for the profession.

This study reports on an intervention that was aimed at improving the content knowledge of first-year intermediate-phase education students at a South African university. The study gives some insight into preservice teachers’ perceptions of an online programme for the development of mathematics common content knowledge for teachers of mathematics in the intermediate grades. The effectiveness of the intervention programme was analysed according to Shapiro’s evaluation criteria for intervention research. The findings show that there has been a positive shift in preservice teachers’ common content knowledge but that there is much room for further development. The student teachers found the programme to be of great benefit with regard to the development of their mathematics knowledge as well as their confidence as future teachers of mathematics. The findings highlighted their disturbingly limited knowledge of mathematics content knowledge and pointed to the responsibility of teacher education departments at universities to implement sufficient maths content courses that will address the status quo of poor mathematics teaching in South African primary schools. The authors conclude that the students need to spend much more time on ‘catching up’ before they become teachers.

This study set out to explore primary school principals’ instructional leadership. The study addressed a key issue in the school improvement literature, pertaining to the curriculum leadership of principals. The literature is not entirely clear about which leadership characteristic is more likely to produce the most favourable outcomes in terms of improved learner outcomes, in other words, how the curriculum has been implemented and how leadership in this regard has been effected. The article argues that robust training and development in instructional leadership practices become necessary to support school leaders in this regard. In South Africa, based on numerous reports of poor learner outcomes in schools, we question whether principals possess the necessary skills required to lead and manage curriculum in schools. In this article, the views of five principals, who have completed the Advanced Certificate in Education: School Leadership and Management (ACESLM) programme, are examined. Findings indicate that not all principals who participated in the study are fully conversant with their roles and responsibilities as instructional leaders. They mainly interpret their functions to be purely managerial and to be leaders and administrators of schools. Thus, whilst some understanding of instructional leadership was apparent in some of the principals’ responses, it is the authors’ views that ACESLM, as a leadership development programme, needs to be redesigned to include greater focus on instructional leadership.

Human parechoviruses (HPeVs) were detected by reverse transcription–PCR in 16.1% of 335 stool samples from children

Cardioviruses cause serious disease, mainly in rodents, including diabetes, myocarditis, encephalomyelitis, and multiple sclerosis–like disseminated encephalomyelitis. Recently, a human virus isolate obtained 25 years ago, termed Saffold virus, was sequenced and classified as a cardiovirus. We conducted systematic molecular screening for Saffold-like viruses in 844 fecal samples from patients with gastroenteritis from Germany and Brazil, across all age groups. Six cardioviruses were identified in patients

We tested 315 bats from 7 different bat species in northern Germany for coronaviruses by reverse transcription–PCR. The overall prevalence was 9.8%. There were 4 lineages of group I coronaviruses in association with 4 different species of verspertilionid bats (Myotis dasycneme, M. daubentonii, Pipistrellus nathusii, P. pygmaeus). The lineages formed a monophyletic clade of bat coronaviruses found in northern Germany. The clade of bat coronaviruses have a sister relationship with a clade of Chinese type I coronaviruses that were also associated with the Myotis genus (M. ricketti). Young age and ongoing lactation, but not sex or existing gravidity, correlated significantly with coronavirus detection. The virus is probably maintained on the population level by amplification and transmission in maternity colonies, rather than being maintained in individual bats.

This paper reports on the implementation of a model that infuses service-learning into a four-year foundation phase teacher education programme. We argue for an integrated curriculum design utilising specifically the teaching (laboratory) school of the faculty, not only for clinical experience or work-integrated learning, but also for service-learning. In this way, the relation of the teacher education programme to the teaching school and its location within Soweto, an area within Johannesburg, optimises the affordances of learning from and through experience for students. The service-learning activities were designed to inform and draw on students’ practical and situational learning (learning in and about context) and address the notions of integrated and applied knowledge in the ‘Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualifications’ (RSA DHET 2011). We argue in this paper that the incremental inclusion of service-learning over a four-year period and the varied nature of the service-learning projects within the programme extend students’ learning from practice, provide opportunities for students to see people outside of formal education as ‘experts’ who have something to contribute to their education, and maximize the potential civic and academic outcomes for students.

No abstract available.

This article addresses the issue of the theory-practice divide in pre-service teacher education from the viewpoint of design-based research (DBR). Using the example of a course in service learning (SL), the authors discuss their reflection on a curriculum that failed to help the students convert declarative knowledge to procedures of pedagogy, or to internalise this knowledge to become part of their disposition as teachers. The students’ theoretical work had remained in an epistemological apartheid zone where it did not meet with practice in either- procedural, conditional-, or reflective knowledge-making The authors then explore part of a curriculum revision model as proposed by Ruthven et al. (2009) who use DBR principles for curriculum refinement, including some of their “intermediary framework” set of tools in a revision that aimed to create an interface for theory and practice.

BackgroundDetection and quantification of hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA is integral to diagnostic and therapeutic regimens. All molecular assays target the viral 5'-noncoding region (5'-NCR), and all show genotype-dependent variation of sensitivities and viral load results. Non-western HCV genotypes have been under-represented in evaluation studies. An alternative diagnostic target region within the HCV genome could facilitate a new generation of assays.Methods and findingsIn this study we determined by de novo sequencing that the 3'-X-tail element, characterized significantly later than the rest of the genome, is highly conserved across genotypes. To prove its clinical utility as a molecular diagnostic target, a prototype qualitative and quantitative test was developed and evaluated multicentrically on a large and complete panel of 725 clinical plasma samples, covering HCV genotypes 1-6, from four continents (Germany, UK, Brazil, South Africa, Singapore). To our knowledge, this is the most diversified and comprehensive panel of clinical and genotype specimens used in HCV nucleic acid testing (NAT) validation to date. The lower limit of detection (LOD) was 18.4 IU/ml (95% confidence interval, 15.3-24.1 IU/ml), suggesting applicability in donor blood screening. The upper LOD exceeded 10(-9) IU/ml, facilitating viral load monitoring within a wide dynamic range. In 598 genotyped samples, quantified by Bayer VERSANT 3.0 branched DNA (bDNA), X-tail-based viral loads were highly concordant with bDNA for all genotypes. Correlation coefficients between bDNA and X-tail NAT, for genotypes 1-6, were: 0.92, 0.85, 0.95, 0.91, 0.95, and 0.96, respectively; X-tail-based viral loads deviated by more than 0.5 log10 from 5'-NCR-based viral loads in only 12% of samples (maximum deviation, 0.85 log10). The successful introduction of X-tail NAT in a Brazilian laboratory confirmed the practical stability and robustness of the X-tail-based protocol. The assay was implemented at low reaction costs (US$8.70 per sample), short turnover times (2.5 h for up to 96 samples), and without technical difficulties.ConclusionThis study indicates a way to fundamentally improve HCV viral load monitoring and infection screening. Our prototype assay can serve as a template for a new generation of viral load assays. Additionally, to our knowledge this study provides the first open protocol to permit industry-grade HCV detection and quantification in resource-limited settings.

We developed a real-time reverse transcription–-PCR that detected 1,164 copies/mL of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus per milliliter of serum at 95% probability (probit analysis) and was 100% concordant with nested PCR on 63 samples from 31 patients with confirmed infection. Infected patients who died appeared to have higher viral loads; low viral loads correlated with IgG detection.