You might want to pursue a career in teaching, but don’t meet the admission requirements. In that case, there is an alternative route that you can take to kickstart your studies towards the profession.
A number of tertiary institutions have an offering of teaching qualifications, with specific minimum admission requirements.
These institutions usually require that you pass your matric with enough points to gain admission into the qualification of your choice and should you not have a teaching qualification as yet, then you will need to apply for an undergraduate qualification in the Bachelor of Education.
Should you not qualify for the BEd qualification, then you may opt for a teaching bridging course.
The University of South Africa (Unisa) offers a Higher Certificate in Education for individuals that intend on enrolling for a BEd Foundation Phase or the BEd Intermediate Phase the following academic year, and then the student will be required to choose a relevant elective for the undergraduate qualification that they have chosen.
Private institutions such as the Independent Institute of Education +Rosebank College and Varsity College offer the Higher Certificate in Early Childhood Care and Education.
The purpose of this programme is to qualify students for a career in teaching and facilitation in the Early Childhood Development (ECD) band.
It will also help students develop the knowledge, skills and applied basic competencies crucial for ECD practitioners in both private and public pre-schools, crèches and educare facilities.
Fortunately, the University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN) also provides individuals with a second chance in subjects such as foundational mathematics or physics for seven weeks.
This seven week course will then allow students who pass with 60% to gain access to study a degree at UKZN where Mathematics is a prerequisite, provided that the applicant meets the other qualifying criteria of the university.
This is applicable to a number of programmes, such as teaching and medicine that have maths as a qualifying criteria.
