Africa’s leading private education group, JSE-listed ADvTECH, has launched South Africa’s first dedicated Centre of Teaching and Learning Excellence, focused on driving excellence across all educational phases in the country. The centre will be the first of its kind, centralising continuous professional development training across both schools and tertiary phases.
Named SIRIUS (after the brightest star in the sky), the centre will be a dynamic learning space, dedicated to facilitating relevant micro-courses and workshops to enhance teaching practices and promote the continuous professional development of the group’s teachers, lecturers, researchers and supervisors across its 119 schools and 33 tertiary campuses.
“SIRIUS will serve as the central hub for educational excellence. ADvTECH teaching and academic staff will be provided with the innovative resources, support, and professional development opportunities, both online and in-person, that they need to consistently excel and drive student growth and performance,” says Desiree Hugo, SIRIUS Schools Head.
“SIRIUS will be a dynamic learning space which will focus on specific areas of practice to support and improve student learning and results, as great teaching can be learned,” she says.
SIRIUS will therefore play a key role in supporting educators in schools and tertiary to deliver on the academic excellence promise of ADvTECH.
Hugo says the centre will support ADvTECH’s academic leadership positioning by:
- Implementing tools for teaching and learning innovation aligned to global benchmarks;
- Driving continuous development of teaching and academic practices that will attract and retain top teachers and academics (lecturers, researchers and supervisors);
- Leveraging research projects to inform and operationalise internal best practices, and
- Capacitating teaching and learning skills for improved student academic outcomes.
SIRIUS modes of delivery will include in-person training at the SIRIUS Hub, online real-time facilitation, and curated online resources for independent self-study.
“We are very excited about the development of our dedicated teaching studio in Sandton, which is specifically designed to facilitate the teaching of 21st century pedagogies,” says Hugo.
The studio will facilitate in-person learning of up to 60 delegates at a time, in a relaxed atmosphere with modern and inspiring spaces equipped with flexible furnishing and cutting-edge technology.
It will include inclusive and functional features, such as a coffee bar, collaboration spaces, and resource centre, as well as a dynamic teaching space that can be adapted to accommodate the various educational phases.
SIRIUS Tertiary Head, Dr Gill Mooney, says the centre will ensure that ADvTECH has a strong and sustainable pipeline of excellent teaching and learning professionals to support the group’s growth imperative, to further solidify its sector leadership position now and into the future.
“By centralising and leveraging skilled and scarce teaching and learning resources, we will be able to further drive excellent academic performance, as well as attract and retain top talent for both our schools and tertiary division, given the extent and accessibility of developmental opportunities. We like to call this empathic empowerment, where all our academics and teachers have the opportunity to shine,” she says.