Andy Duffy
The government is poised to again delay the introduction of the new school curriculum after its launch earlier this year missed at least 20 000 primary schools, one in five of the schools targeted.
Provincial report-backs for the first term of the school year show that up to half of the primary schools in some provinces had ignored the launch of Curriculum 2005.
The blow is all the more bitter because the national education department had attempted to kickstart the phase-in. It provided emergency training and materials to ensure all the provinces could at least all start from the same footing.
But Department of Education Deputy Director General Ihron Rensburg says several provinces had failed to implement the emergency plans. The worst culprits were the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, the Northern Province and North West.
The start-up scheme, initially costed at R25-million and slated to run for just three months, may now run for the entire school year and cost up to R80-million. In the meantime, the department is considering delaying the curriculum’s introduction in other grades for another year.
Another, less-favoured option would be to allow those provinces that are doing well, such as Gauteng and the Western Cape, to stick to the original timetable.
Rensburg says the department’s decision to seek maximum involvement from the provinces in the launch has probably backfired. The department’s options now include cutting out provincial departments by arranging for textbook publishers to deal directly with schools. Rensburg adds, however, that this proposal is also dangerous, given the lack of management capacity at school level and the vulnerability of such a set-up to fraud. The department is also seeking to draft in NGOs to help provide teacher training and support.
Teaching unions have been warning for months that the curriculum’s launch would hit problems at provincial level. Provinces spend the bulk of their education budgets on personnel, leaving little for expenditure on training or textbooks.
Education in the North West and Free State has also been hampered by chaotic management. Both provinces have fired education MECs recently.
Such obstacles forced Minister of Education Sibusiso Bengu last July to limit the curriculum’s launch to just grade one, with the phase-in for additional grades running from 1999.
Rensburg says the phase-in for grade two can probably go ahead as planned next year, but that the launch in grades three and seven will probably have to be delayed for another year. He remains confident that the curriculum will be fully in place by 2005. Much hinges, however, on the funds the department can raise for training and materials.
Rensburg reckons the total cost this year could be about R80-million. Some of the cash will come from a recently established department policy reserve, but the department will also look to the president’s education fund for further support.
The National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa says schools in areas such as Gauteng are doing well with the new curriculum, but these are “isolated cases”. “We’ve realised all along the magnitude of the task ahead,” says representative Andrew Pyper. “One has to be realistic. There are few materials and it is physically impossible to train so many people so quickly.”