2.3 THE IMPORTANCE OF TEXTBOOKS IN BUSINESS STUDIES
2.3.2 Textbooks in teaching and learning of Business Studies
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Business Studies CAPS require learners to engage in active and critical learning, high knowledge and high skills, identify and solve problems and make decisions using critical and creative thinking (DoE, 2011). In order for one to understand the subject Business Studies, one needs to understand the Business Studies concepts. In this regard, textbooks should reflect the reform of the curriculum and align with the curriculum requirements in terms of content. The teacher’s planning and teaching is made tranquil by means of sequential and easy to follow pace content. These textbooks assist with examples of complications, informal daily teaching and learning activities and recommendations for prescribed tasks. Textbooks should accommodate learner diversity and should be easily accessible to leaners in the form of printouts or audio texts. In that light, textbook content is to be written in a way that it can be reworked to suited learners with learning barriers, when engaging with good textbooks.
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Business activities have an influence within jobs, opportunities for personal innovativeness and incomes. The standard of living and quality of living in many places of living is yet again argued to be affected significantly by the Business activities one engages with on a daily basis.
Ultimately, one way or another, all learners are to be equipped for the world of Business as they are yet to encounter it and they are to be equipped enough to be able to tackle any Business activity confidently and capably (Mahmood, 2009). However, it is important that in the textbooks, especially the Business Studies textbook, they are “carefully examined for bias” like those which can hinder their journey towards being equipped for the world of Business (Pillay, 2017, p.64). Further, failure in the exposure of multiple perspectives of the Business world to learners, means that the textbooks would are continuing with an unequal system stirred by the economically powerful group and is continuously biased towards learners (Pillay, 2017).
Having to focus mostly on those aspects of Business Studies would also assist greatly on the practical skills essential for the Business workplace, if one has the utmost wish to head directly into the workplace after what is called higher education. In considering the outside world of business, a study of the community, individuals and organisations together with their desires and difficulties is to be taken into account, with an aim of devising suitable solutions. Business Studies works hand in hand with other fields which interact simultaneously with each other to achieve one set goal. As a guide to achieve this set goal, Business Studies as a subject, draws on many facts, processes and concepts from other arenas of study, DBE (2011). These arenas can somehow be linked to the arena of Business and so can uplift it in some way or another.
Some of the typical examples of arenas that work hand in hand and have a link are marketing and communications, entrepreneurial studies and technology, as well as human nature and management and studies of society. The one common thing about information and communication technology, is that the skills and knowledge is considered to be relevant and related to all the disciplines across the curriculum. The application of what the learners learn in other subject areas can be easy in the world of business and vice versa, as learners can easily transfer what they have learnt in one subject and use it profitably in other subjects.
As the world of business requires all types of skills that are gained through a number of subjects, it would greatly help learners to focus on the relevant subject which applies all the skills in Business Studies. Learners who aim at getting into the world of business after secondary or high school, have to focus mostly on Business Studies because of its qualities.
Demonstrated by the subject, Business Studies is the impact that is shown visibly in the lives
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of many through the combination of productive activities put out. A successful evolution to the education after secondary school and workplace made by the learners can be done through the assistance of the knowledge and skills provided through courses of this discipline. The most common subject and its textbook that is considered to prepare learners for better opportunities, world challenges and the experiences that they are going to encounter, is Business Studies.
Mahmood (2009, p.165) argues that “one of the basic principles generally used for the development of a quality product is that it should meet the criteria used to determine its quality”. Quality products assist the students in studying further in the business field and also with life in general (Mahmood, 2009). Business Studies is seen as a dynamic course which formulates students for the hardship they encounter during and in the 21st century by familiarising them with the world of business. Business Studies is considered to be a key mediator of economic and technological development; this can be done either as means of developing human capacity or enabling of the masses or conservational development (Umezulike & Okoye, 2013). A significant role in the economic development is played by the subject Business Studies, by making available the necessary knowledge and skills to learners allowing them to convey the knowledge and skills to others (Amoor, 2010). The world of business is the real world and they are thus seen as connected to each other and as having the same qualities.
From small businesses and worldwide initiatives, the operations and the smooth operations of the business involved which multidimensional is ensured by the Business Studies curriculum.
The economy is therefore driven by these businesses and its smooth operation; business industries are also accountable for the creation of jobs, the standard of living for many and influence the manner in which many of the secondary school learners make their career choices.
This is when the subject of Business Studies comes in with prospects of relevant, real world learning experiences that help learners face the difficult situations with ease (Amoor, 2010).
Experiences like this help one to get theoretical learning reinforced as well provide learners with genuine perspectives which can be applied in their teaching and learning process. In the intention of the Business Studies learners and teacher’s exploring potential work environment and business opportunities, they engage in sharing information from different business pathways. These pathways are associated with specific education and workplace purposes, which includes supportive business education developments.
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Relevance in what a certain learner is learning and being taught based on Business Studies is an essential element that contributes largely to the learner’s understanding and grasping of business-related content, and furthermore in motivating the learner to be eager to learn more the business world. A great impact has been seen in the Business Studies textbooks used on classroom work and this has resulted in textbooks being the sole backbone of teaching, (Kajander & Lovric, 2009; Tornroos, 2005). The basic resource for teaching and learning is the textbook, and it aims at simplifying the instruction through teachers and student’s understanding of the Business Studies subject. Yang and Sianturi (2017, p. 3831) suggest that for the support system of teachers and education, “textbooks constitute an integral element of education”. Yang and Sianturi (2017) believes that the influence of what topics are contained and how are these topics developed is through textbooks. Business teaching and education is driven by the textbooks in the classroom. In all educational levels and in all educational institutions that offer Business education, textbooks are used as the main resource of education.
According to Odün (2013, p. 1), “content, presentation, and the learning provided to students by textbooks are important for teachers for the effective delivery of the curriculum”.
However, Graves (2000) emphasises that the ever-changing information of Business Studies which needs to be included in textbooks, and there are no ready-made textbooks that can always be suitable flawlessly to the education system or even to specifically to the Business Studies subject. Ideal textbooks Business Studies for every single teacher, all the different groups of learners with different learning and ideal learning situations, have not yet been found.
Moreover, diverse teacher reactions of teachers teaching Business Studies have been observed with and during the use of textbooks in different classroom situations, Graves (2000). The entitlement of the high degree of suitability, appropriateness and relevance in a business-related textbook by teachers and learners is not that of total acceptance (Sunday, 2014). This may be due to the fact that knowledgeable Business Studies teachers are not blind to the textbooks they are using, considering that textbooks serve as a guide to learners when they are learning and the instruction by the teacher is directed. This implies that (Sunday, 2014, p. 148) “giving opportunity to the students to make an assessment might tend to reduce the level of the textbooks’ appropriateness and likewise the exposure of teachers to other textbooks written in pattern to programmed instructions which is interactive in presentation, may make them reconsider a downward review of the appropriateness of their textbooks”.
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If the above statement refers to all textbooks in general, the same fact applies to Business Studies textbooks. Even after the huge recently advanced teaching and learning resources, textbooks continue its dominance within the Business Studies discipline. The textbooks hold the key and fundamental role in the teaching and learning process, and it is implied, influences users greatly.