Importance Of Mediation In Education

1. Introduction

The South African Schools Act of no 84 of 1996 in its preamble makes mention of the provision of education of a progressively high quality for all learners. However South Africa’s education is ranked amongst the worst in the world. In an article by Mary Alexander on the National Development Plan’s 2030 vision the further education and training system is not effective. It is too small and the output quality is poor. Continuous quality improvement is needed as the system expands, this is despite continuous efforts by the government to improve the state of our educational system. The teacher serves the role of being the main person that learners interact with in the classroom and in the process of learning for this reason the

Mediation in learning entails teachers’ competence to: address the diverse needs of learners, including those with barriers to learning; construct learning environments that are appropriately contextualized and inspirational, communicate effectively, showing recognition of, and respect for differences in others, this is according to According to the Department of Education (DoE, 2000). According to McNeil (1990: 314), Mediation refers to the interpretative process by which people make sense of or create meaning from experience. From these different definitions it is clear that the educator as a mediator serves as the intermediary between the learners and the learning and has the task of facilitating the learning process. The mediator has the responsibility of steering the learning process and finding ways to arouse curiosity and enthusiasm in learners. If an educator is successfully able to do this they will have learners who are eager to learn and this can be measured by learner’s engagement in the learning process. In order to successfully mediate an educator can make use of frameworks such as the Feuerstein Method which at its core teaches learners how to learn and is based on the research of Professor Feuerstein who set out to prove that that intelligence is not fixed but modifiable. This means that with the right environment and stimuli every learner can perform at their optimum. It would go without saying that teachers are a crucial role player in the learning process and there for play a key role in this process. They are both a key and a bridge between learners and knowledge, unlocking both their potential as well as their potential. We can however never stress enough that mediation only facilitates learning and that a mediator can never learn on a learner’s behalf. There is merely to encourage and facilitate