Lecturers teach and engage in research projects at universities and other higher education institutions. They teach a variation of subjects at undergraduate and postgraduate levels to students who have chosen to pursue a tertiary education.
According to the 2020 audited number of full-time lecturers in terms of their highest qualification at public universitiesin South Africa, 632 have Bachelors Degrees, 1 540 have completed their Honours Degrees, 7 188 have Masters Degrees and 10 021 have Doctorate degrees.
Doctorate degrees are advanced degrees which show that a person has mastered a specific area of study or field of profession, most lecturers according to this list completed this degree at the University of South Africa (Unisa).
Usually the minimum requirements for entry into lecturing is a Bachelors degree and a Postgraduate qualification that is relevant to the subject the person wants to teach.
Just having a Bachelor's degree is unlikely to land someone a lecturing job as competitors will have earned their Master's or Doctorate degrees which will show their competence and expertise in a certain subject.
Graduates may be able to take on teaching duties while studying towards their Postgraduate degrees by working as a graduate teaching assistant. This may involve teaching lower-division courses or even participating in research studies with a faculty member.
Lecturers contribute to their department's research activities and publish their work in academic journals and books. Higher education institutions recognize these research projects and may see this as something that sets a lecturer apart in their field.
Lecturers may have the following duties:
-
interviewing course applicants.
-
lecture planning, preparation and research.
-
contact and teaching time with students.
-
tutoring students in a particular subject
-
checking and assessing students’ work through tests and exams
-
invigilating examinations.
-
attending staff meetings, seminars and professional conferences
-
supervising PhD students and research staff
