Welcome to the Department for Adult Basic Education and Training

The Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) Department was established in 1994 and enrolled its first students in January 1995. Today, some thirteen years later, the ABET Department boasts a very strong team of approximately 200 tutors who teach our students across the country, a super-efficient administrative staff and an extremely competent team of academics. In the ten years of its existence, UNISA's ABET Department trained more than 41 000 ABET practitioners – a very large team indeed - in fact, the largest of its kind in the world! Our graduate ABET practitioners are bound by our slogan of education for development. They are active in a variety of sectors and contribute to many of the ABET activities that happen nationally and internationally. What will I be able to do if I enroll for an ABET course at UNISA? With the problems of widespread poverty, shrinking work opportunities and a tremendous backlog of adults (estimated at 9.5 million) requiring some form of adult education, UNISA’s ABET Department’s programmes enable practitioners to:

i)  present and manage ABET programmes
ii) use, design and evaluate materials
iii) assessment learners, and
iv) analyse the learning needs and social contexts of the adult learner.

Our intention is to train practitioners who might find themselves in one of a diversity of situations where they will be required to train adults who require a basic education. Some of our many graduate students work in sectors such as the departments of Water and Environment, Health, Education, Transport, Labour, the trade unions and many of the NGOs both in South Africa as well as in our neighbouring countries. Because of the wide application of our courses, the ABET Department has made various specialist courses available for practitioners who wish to specialise in areas such the teaching of different trades, health education, environmental education, literacy, numeracy, English, water and sanitation and so on.