“Teachers shape far more than academics. They nurture a child’s self-esteem, sense of belonging and view of the world.” – Assis, 2025.
Under the theme Strengthening Teacher Education, the event gathered teacher partners to create platforms, and to tap into collective experiences and enhance teacher education programmes.
Eastern Cape MEC for Education, Fundile Gade
Delivering the keynote address, Eastern Cape MEC for Education, Fundile Gade, left, commended the Faculty for its continued dedication to teacher education.
Reflecting on the challenges facing education in the province, MEC Gade emphasised the need for improvement, with mistakes needed to be identified, admitted and explained and then a pathway to rectify them, navigated.
“We are not here to “play the blame game” but to exchange ideas, to help change the education system.
"We believe that by working together with our external stakeholders, we are working together to take hands and change the world,” said MEC Gade.
Dr Naledi Mbude-Mehana
Deputy Director-General at the Department of Basic Education, Dr Naledi Mbude-Mehana’s presentation addressed the critical role of Mother-Tongue Based Bilingual Education (MTBBE), language malnutrition and epistemic violence.
Quoting renowned linguist and scholar on language policy in Africa. Ekkehard Wolff, Dr Mbude-Mehana, stated: “Language is not everything in education but without language, everything is nothing in education.”
She emphasised that MTBBE is more than just translating English content into indigenous languages.
Instead, it integrates a learner's home language with English instruction, fostering genuine bilingualism, promoting epistemic justice, and ensuring meaningful inclusion in the classroom.
Although South Africa recognises 12 official languages among the 35 spoken, only English and Afrikaans are adequately resourced. This has serious implications for foundational learning, Dr Mbude-Mehana said.
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Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education Professor Heloise Sathorar, Eastern Cape MEC for Education, Fundile Gade and Deputy Dean Prof Shervani Pillay
She highlighted the importance of Digital Language Resources (DLRs) to support the development of learning materials in underserved languages.
These tools are essential for expanding access to quality teaching resources and enhancing the vitality of all languages in the education system.
The MTBBE strategy and the implementation plan, which the Department of Basic Education has outlined as an incremental plan for the nation-wide rollout, begins with a strategic focus on foundational learning.
Dr Mbude-Mehana called on Higher Education Institutions to play a leading role in this transformation by equipping future educators with the knowledge and tools needed to implement bilingual education effectively.
She concluded that teachers should be empowered to bridge gaps in foundational learning and Higher Education Institutions are essential to build a new generation of educators who are responsive to the linguistic and cultural diversity of classrooms.
