CHAPTER FOUR
4.7.2 Pre-1994 and Christian National Education
Observation and experience indicate that education systems affect life chances of citizens and profoundly affect access to their opportunities in society. South Africa is in a transition, characterized by transformation in every sphere of life, including the sphere of education and training. Embraced in this transformation is the significant paradigm shift in the way people think about learning and the way it is organized in education and training.
The previous education system was characterised by traditional curricula subjected to a time constraint and driven by the calendar. It was a paradigm of structured and inflexible curriculum. This technical view of curriculum persisted in South Africa well into the 1990s, although globally the emphasis was more on an inclusive type of curriculum to cater for the changing needs of society. This system did not develop a vision for citizenship, nor did it educate for the nation. Changing to a new dispensation would mean setting a new vision and approach for education. This approach would drift the state‟s regulatory emphasis away from the amount of time spent in school, to the specification of rigorous outcomes for student achievement. It required a shift from focusing on teacher input (syllabus expressed in terms of content) to focusing on learner outcomes (Van Der Horst & McDonald, 1997). In our
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education system this shift was inevitable because there was a need for more learning on global awareness, on helping the learners to recognise their responsibilities, and on opening up access while ensuring that people have access to quality.
In the White Paper on Education and Training (1995) the Minister of Education reiterates the central problem facing education and training in South Africa, namely, that “South Africa has never had a truly national system of education and training”.
This was due to the previous dispensation which promoted a racially and culturally segregated and differentiated education system based on a philosophy of Christian National Education (CNE) as stipulated in the National Education Policy Act (No.39 of 1967). Ashley (1989) describes Christian National Education as the “educational expression of apartheid”. The Christian National Education started in the early 1870s, based on the Calvinistic Christian doctrine. Education was based on strong Christian principles, and children were instilled with a respect for authority and an ardent sense of nationalism. Ashley (1989) further describes Christian National Education as being technicist, rigid and authoritarian. This was also used as a vehicle to promote Afrikaner nationalism and segregation.
Up to and including 1983, the various education departments in South Africa functioned, to a large extent, independently of one another, and there was no significant indication of a common curriculum followed by all. A measure of commonality, especially in the higher standards was, however, achieved through the role that the then Joint Matriculation Board (JMB) played in curriculum development, examination and certification.
It is therefore clearly stated in the White Paper on Education and Training (1995) that this state of fragmentation necessitates strong, co-ordinating structures and mechanisms. The new education system must therefore be a single national system which is largely organized and managed on the basis of nine provincial sub-systems.
To realize this aim the Constitution has vested substantial powers in the Provincial Legislature to administer educational affairs subject to a national policy framework.
Education is also one of the „Schedule 6‟ functions on which the constitution gives both the national Parliament and the provincial legislatures the competence to make laws. The Department of Education‟s future function will be, inter alia, to establish
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norms and standards with respect to curriculum frameworks, standards, examinations and certification in terms of the National Education Policy Act, 1996 (No.27 of 1996).
The curriculum is regarded as central to the education process. Curriculum policies are developed and changed in specific circumstances involving political and economic considerations. Hammersley & Hargreaves (1983) states that the nature of education is rarely, if ever, the practical realisation of an ideal form of instruction as envisaged by a particular group. Instead, most of the time the forms that education takes are the political products of power struggles. They bear the marks of concession to allies and compromises with opponents. Thus, to understand the nature of education at any one time, we need to know who won the struggle for control. The motive power of any pressure group lies in a shared belief in their perception of what is wrong or lacking in the current situation, and of what can be done about it, and in the ability of the leadership to canalize the dissatisfaction of the group, and of others, into line with these beliefs, by crystallizing, defining and focusing it in such a way as to create a widely shared frame of reference.
According to the National Education Policy Investigation Report (NEPI, 1992) a curriculum policy for South Africa needs to be grounded in an analysis of existing circumstances, and to be meshed with goals for future social development. It was also stated by the Minister of Education that education and training must change. The curriculum of the former dispensation has been regarded as irrelevant for some learners. The irrelevancy of the previous curriculum is further illustrated by the need of successful modern economies for citizens with a strong foundation of general education and who could move flexibly between occupations. The South African economy serves here as a good example where changes in the relative contribution of the various economic sectors have serious implications for a future curriculum.
To realize this aim, the knowledge and skills base of the working and unemployed population has to be massively upgraded, and young people still at school, should be given better opportunities to continue their education and training. The overarching goal of the national education policy should therefore be to enable all individuals to value, have access to and succeed in lifelong education and training of good quality.
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All learners, namely children, youth and adults, should be exposed to good quality education and training, and they should also be able to move easily from one learning context to another. The emphasis is therefore on lifelong education and training of good quality.
Owing to the growing concern about the effectiveness of traditional methods of teaching and training, which are currently still content-based, standards will in future be defined in terms of learning outcomes. The emphasis will be on what the learners know and can do at the end of a course of learning and teaching, instead of the means which are used to achieve those results.
The Ministry of Education has committed itself to a fully participatory process of curriculum development, in which the teaching profession, teacher teachers, subject advisors and other learning practitioners play a leading role, along with academic subject specialists and researchers. The process must be open and transparent, with proposals and critique being requested from any persons or bodies with interests in the learning process and learning outcomes.
The previous curriculum decision-making structures and processes were characterized by a complex network of different bodies, with its committee structure co-ordinated by the Network Committee for Curriculum Development. Curriculum development in these former structures occurred outside the public domain, as an in- house and largely non-participative activity without formal representation of major interest groups such as corporate capital, organized labour, and other groups in civil society. Syllabuses were prescriptive and detailed, allowing almost no room for teacher initiative
The ANC Policy Framework for Education and Training of January 1994 exemplifies the lack of democratic control within the previous education and training system.
This resulted in an exclusion of major stakeholders, such as teachers from the decision- making process. In view of this, the ANC strived for the active participation of various interests groups, in particular teachers, parents and students, workers and employers. The ANC stresses the principle that policies are matters not for
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governments only. Such policies must be the product of open social and political processes involving all major stakeholders and interest groups.
The question of participation was reiterated in the NEPI Report (1992) indicating that one of the first challenges of the new system would be to open up curriculum- decision making to broader participation and to appropriate public accountability.