The shift from one curriculum to another in the post-apartheid era created numerous challenges for participants. Participants have been quite articulate in voicing the challenges that they have had. The first curriculum, being C2005, was introduced to address the inequalities prevalent in South Africa’s apartheid education. OBE introduced student centred methodologies, in the hope of bridging the various diversities in the multicultural society, prevalent in South Africa.
It was a good notion to create a democratic society, providing equal education for all. However, such a change in curriculum from the previous traditional type of education to the new type of education caused teachers to tread an untouched territory and therefore created an abyss of unfamiliar knowledge. This abyss created an abundance of work for teachers to interpret and implement this new policy into their classroom while being already faced with diverse challenges such as large classroom sizes, multicultural and multilingual students and their own fears of the unknown.
140 OBE had many challenges. The previously disadvantaged needed a great infusion of resources in order to improve the poor state of education during the reign of the apartheid government (Jansen, 1999). Furthermore, for OBE in C2005 to achieve maximum success it needed a greater infusion of finance, especially in disadvantaged schools, to make it work (Jansen, 2002;
Jansen, 2001). Pedagogic practices were required to be changed from those of an authoritarian teacher-centred education system to those of a student-centred education system. Education policies had to reflect these changes via the curriculum. The top-down teaching approach that was prescribed in the apartheid system had to change to equip students with autonomy in their learning. The change in pedagogic practice is linked to political, social and economic development in order to give students access in society (Jansen, 1999). The student-centred education system would benefit students by creating critical thinkers and skilled students which would gain them access in society and to the global market.
The newly appointed government, the ANC, was responsible for the policy making process.
Jansen (2001, 2002) argues that policies were symbols of politics by delving into case studies where politicians and public lend credence to the policies rather than the implementation. In order for South Africa to compete globally, the policy making body had to show their democratic allegiances that their policies were equal to the best in the world (Jansen, 2001).
The policies were about purging the apartheid curriculum (Harley & Wedekind, 2004; Jansen, 2002; Jansen, 2001) and as Jansen (2002; 2001) points out, had little to do with actual practice in the classroom. The policy making body approached the changes in an undemocratic manner where a top-down approach to the planning and design of policies was used and the various provincial education departments were subsequently expected to see to the implementation of the policies (De Clercq, 1997; Jansen, 2002; Jansen; 2001).
What is important to note is that teachers were not consulted on the curriculum choice yet participated in the refinement of C2005 and the making of learning programmes (Cross, Mungadi & Rouhani, 2002; Jansen; 2001). Had teachers been consulted about the choice of curriculum, then it stands to reason that they would have advised on contextual factors that were pertinent to their schools and may have had bearing on the ultimate choice of curriculum.
The complex language that South Africa brought in to be used with OBE was confusing to teachers (Chisholm, 2003; Harley & Wedekind, 2004; Jansen, 1999) and created administration
141 burdens. The cascade model was used to disseminate the education policies for implementation to the teachers. Pithouse (2001) argues that these workshops were poorly planned and facilitated over short periods of time. This top-down approach of dissemination not only undermined the role of teachers but caused confusion as to what was expected to be implemented in such a curriculum (Jansen, 1999).
As Jansen (1998) argues, an endeavour such as OBE required a great deal of planning and training to be adequately implemented. However, this was not so. OBE was to be implemented in a short space of time (Jansen, 1998), yet a complete overhaul of education processes was needed. This was not at all feasible. Many black teachers were excited about the prospects of the implementation of a new, non-racist curriculum (Harley & Wedekind, 2004). This meant securing an opportunity of redressing the past inequalities (Jansen, 1998).
With the many problems of the C2005 curriculum such as the lack of emphasis on content issues, new policies were introduced such as RNCS, NCS and now CAPS. As participants have stressed, with each curriculum change there has been work burdens and as Mala enunciated, by the time one gets used to one policy then there is a curriculum change which brings about more work burdens. Now CAPS has gone to the opposite dimension of C2005 incorporating OBE. It has become more centralised and prescriptive, urging teachers to comply with policy demands through monitoring and accountability which has been communicated by participants.
Participants have found value in student centred approaches where they can meet the needs of diverse students in their classroom but CAPS now restricts them from using such methods because of limited time frames and prescription. Teachers have divulged their concerns about not meeting the needs of all the students in their classrooms and being forced to complete the CAPS syllabus in the required time. Participants have complained about not getting the time to be innovative and creative in the classroom and being forced to use traditional teaching methods because of the limited time frames they have. By being prescriptive policies are thought to improve the performance of students in mathematics but in so doing contradicts the critical outcomes that are present in all the transformative education policies. Apple (2003) related the contradiction to decentralising and centralising policy descriptors. Decentralising principles give greater autonomy to the educator and are based on the principles of democracy while centralising policies involve the state in being prescriptive and giving little or no
142 autonomy to the educator in implementing curriculum policies. Centralising policy documents, Beets (2012) and Mncube and Harber (2010) argue is because of the global concern with quality education especially in developing countries such as South Africa. By centralising policies the state has a greater control in attaining global standards for the country. The centralising principle now comes into effect where educators are forced to become robotic as they just deliver lessons that are based with specificity in the curriculum policies because of state control through curriculum policies. This argument has weight as the many accountability issues that teachers are subjected to allow them little or no autonomy.
The various contradictions within policies have been raised because of the experiences of participants who have been faced with implementing the curriculum policy changes. Findings have shown the constant curriculum changes have been a source of work and burden to teachers. They have had to deal with the changes with little help and assistance except in the form of an expert which they have found themselves and the network they have formed. The many challenges such as language barriers, work burdens, confusion that has arisen, student diversities, curriculum prescription demands as well as monitoring and accountability to ensure student achievement have all forced participants to resort to traditional methods of teaching, teaching generally to all students and thereby ignoring individual needs of students. New curriculum policy influences have shaped these teachers’ work which is in contradiction to the expected outcomes of policy initiatives. However, the many challenges teachers face each day in the context that they teach in which curriculum policies ignore as they uses a ‘one size fits all’ perspective, has enforced the way they implement curriculum reforms.
Conclusion
The analysis done in this chapter revealed the following: There are increased administration demands on teachers, new curriculum polices have not changed the teaching approaches of the participants in this study, new curriculum policies reduced teacher agency, teacher content knowledge gaps were exposed with the new curriculum policies, teaching approaches introduced by the new curriculum policies were more demanding, the new curricular have increased monitoring and accountability, the new curriculum policies do not cater for different student ability groups, new curriculum have produced stress and negativity, language barriers are intensified and finally, participants are forced to seek professional assistance from other
143 sources. Certainly, the new curriculum has not benefitted teachers and implementation has become more complicated. In the next chapter I will be analysing the multiple perspective experience of the participants.
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