On Tuesday, March 17 the KwaZulu-Natal Education Department hosted the National Teacher Awards (NTA) ceremony at Isibaya Conference Centre in Durban. This provincial initiative is aimed at awarding teachers excelling in their fields or areas of specialisation. This ceremony was blessed by the presence of dignitaries from the Education Department like the MEC for Education Ms P Nkonyeni who made the keynote address after being introduced by Dr N Sishi the Head of Department.

In her keynote address the MEC complimented the 38 awardees for excelling in different categories, particularly the three candidates who progressed to the national finals. She further said the province is proud of hard working and committed teachers who proved to be good ambassadors for the province. She further outlined and unpacked programmes in the pipeline like ‘Telematics’, which aims at addressing challenges and further guarantee and improve quality education. This will aid in lesson planning and presentations.

Teachers were also urged to further their studies and to specialise in human behaviour, which will help a teacher in unlocking and understanding the hidden potential and talents of individual learners. Principal of Phumelelani Primary School Mrs NM Cebekhulu and Deputy Principal Mr SL Mazibuko were both awarded trophies, certificates and other tokens for obtaining second place in the Excellence in Primary School Leadership category.

They are grateful for the support they received from the District Teachers Development Task Team leader Mr Essoup, Circuit Manager Ms WB Ndima and other stakeholders. The team would like to inspire School Management Teams and teaching personnel to collaborate all the time in their leadership and administrative endeavours.

Furthermore venture into these initiatives, since they are developmental in nature. Lastly they give credit to the Continuing Professional Training and Development, which is a requirement by the South African Council of Educators.
To crown it all, this is a platform where one would come out and be transparent to the world and show that one is excelling in one’s field.