5.2. Background of Commerce Teachers’ Association
5.2.3. The objectives of the Commerce Teachers’ Association
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Year 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Percentage obtained
60,6 67,8 70.2 73,9 78.2 75,8
Percentage changes
+7,2 +2,4 +3,7 +4,3 -2, 4
Table 19: KZN Provincial Pass Rate (From 2014 KZN Analysis of NSC Grade 12 Results)
Table 19 shows that there was an increase in grade 12 results from 2010 to 2013. In 2014 the Grade 12 results dropped, which is also reflected in the result of the Commerce subjects in Table 18. The drop in Grade 12 results suggests contradiction again between subjects (teachers), object, (teaching) outcome (high pass rate) and community (DBE, parents, and learners). While this could suggest that teachers may not have enacted the object teaching effectively, there could be several other reasons that may have affected the outcome involving the entire activity system. Hence, this decrease in Grade 12 results does not necessarily mean that it was due to poor object enactment by subjects in 2014 or to the Commerce Teachers’ Association as subjects failing to enact according to the division of labour.
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The objectives target the content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge and practical knowledge such as innovations and the use of computer in teaching. Using the CHAT framework, it can be seen that the objectives aim at equipping Commerce teachers as subjects with psychological mediational means. These mediational means are physical (such as hand- outs) and psychological (knowledge imparted by the facilitators from outside the district). In line with CHAT, the objectives for the formation of Commerce Teachers’ Association suggest that the epistemic assumptions or beliefs held by the Commerce teachers (the chairperson and the secretary of the Commerce Teachers ’Association) as subjects, and their subject advisors as community, are that Commerce teachers will learn by engaging in workshops to acquire content knowledge and general pedagogical knowledge. Meetings and workshops (in this case the meeting is an activity) are central in this study as they are assumed to have the potential to enable mediation of tasks by the subjects (Commerce teachers). Table 4 below shows the number of executive meetings, annual general meetings and content workshops held during the past four years (2010 to 2014) summarising attendance at meetings and workshops of the Commerce Teachers’ Association. In CHAT terminology, these are the activities that educators engaged in.
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Year Subject Number of
Workshops/
Meeting
Focus of the meetings / workshops
2010 Commerce teachers’
meeting
1 Launching of Commerce Teachers’
Association
2010 Executive meeting 1 Planning for the revision workshop 2010 Executive meeting
Accounting Business Studies Economics
1 1 1 1
Planning for revision workshops
Revision workshop for Grade 12 teachers Revision workshop for Grade 12 teachers Revision workshop for Grade 12 teachers 2011 Executive meeting
Accounting Business Studies Economics
1 1 1
Planning for revision workshops
Revision workshop for Grade 12 teachers Revision workshop for Grade 12 teachers Revision workshop for Grade 12 teachers 2012 Executive meeting
Accounting Business Studies Economics
1 1 1 1
Planning for revision workshops
Revision workshop for Grade 12 teachers Revision workshop for Grade 12 teachers Revision workshop for Grade 12 teachers 2013 Executive meeting
Business Studies Economics
1 1 1
Planning for revision workshops
Revision workshop for Grade 12 teachers Revision workshop for Grade 12 teachers 2014 Annual General
meeting
1 Election of the new executive committee
Table 20: Schedule of meetings of Commerce Teachers’ Association
Contrary to the Constitution of Commerce Teachers’ Association which stipulates that there should be meetings and workshops once a term, Table 20 shows that the Commerce Teachers’ Association executive committee held a meeting once a year and ran only one workshop for each subject. In August 2010, the Commerce Teachers’ Association was launched. In the launching meeting, the main object was the election of the executive committee. This was followed by the executive meeting for planning which was then followed by revision workshops for each of the three Commerce subjects held by the external examiners. According to the attendance registers of the workshops, the workshops were called Matric Intervention Programmes (MIP) because the focus of these meetings was on Grade 12 content. The concept MIP is normally used by the Department of Basic Education to refer to DBE’s intervention programmes in Grade 12. In 2011 and 2012, there was an executive meeting for planning for content workshops which was followed by the revision workshops. In 2013 there was also one executive meeting for planning for content workshops. Revision workshops were only held for Economics and Business Studies, which took place in August in 2013. There was no Accounting workshop organized by Commerce Teachers’ Association for Accounting 2013.
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Table 20 (above) is based on survey data shows a summary of attendance at meetings and workshops by each participant. This summary of meetings and workshop attendance excludes the launching meeting held in 2010. In 2014 there were no meetings or content workshops except the annual general meeting which was held in October where the new executive committee was elected. The absence of meetings and workshops for Commerce teachers suggests that the executive committee failed to organise planning meeting and workshops for Commerce teachers as stipulated in the Constitution of Commerce Teachers’ Association.
The Economics subject advisor who is an ex- officio member of the executive of Commerce Teachers’ Association responded to questions about meetings time, frequency of meetings and whether they had met in 2014:
We are supposed to meet once a term. We have not yet met this year due to programmes and other things. Again most of the executive committee members are members of the school management teams at their schools and another thing is that they do not live in the same area; they do not live in the same proximity of locality. So that is why it is not that easy meeting up (Interview with Economics Subject advisor. 20/7/2014).
From a CHAT perspective, a failure of the executive committee to organize meetings and workshops of Commerce teachers creates contradictions between the several nodes of activity. Celokuhle, the chairperson, was supposed to call an executive meeting to organize workshops. So the chairperson is the source of the contradiction. The contradiction involving the subject (chairperson), the division of labour, and the rules occurred. In other words the subject failed to act within the division of labour and at the same time went against the rules of the association. However, the nature of this contradiction did not lead to any learning.
The Constitution of the association stipulates that the chairperson should ensure that meetings and workshops to enact the object are organized. Lack of meetings and workshops for the Commerce Teachers’ Association also lead to the absence of object enactment by subject (which is mostly learning how to revise with learners) in preparation for the exams. Such contradictions impact negatively on the achievement of the outcome. Mrs. Mathe, the Economics subject advisor stated that the district context, in terms of location of schools, also contributed to the shortage of meetings. From a CHAT perspective the location situation of the district suggests “structural contradictions” (Joo, 2014, p. 55) of subjects (Commerce teachers) and district context, because the schools are not in the same proximity of locality.
The contradiction here involves subjects (teachers), object (Accounting, Business Studies and Economics learning), and mediating tools (district context). In other words, because schools
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are far apart (district context as mediating tool), subjects cannot enact the object (economics learning) which then impacts on the object and consequently the outcome.
On the whole, Mrs Mathe’s statement about frequency of meetings of the executive committee and the schedule of meetings and workshops (Table 5) of Commerce Teachers’
Association reveals that meetings and workshops were not held regularly. This situation is in contrast with the literature (Du Four, 2004) on teacher learning which states that in a teacher learning community the group of teachers meets regularly as a team. The focus of these meetings and workshops as shown in Table 20 is Grade 12 revision programmes rather than facilitating mastery of technical skills, teaching and methodological skills as stipulated by the objectives of Commerce Teachers’ Association. From a CHAT viewpoint the rules/ the entire activity system occurred contradiction occurred, the rules (in the Constitution) and the entire activity system because there is a divergence of views between the objectives of Commerce Teachers’ Association and what was really happening on the ground.