David Macfarlane
Tensions are rising sharply over the new school curriculum as teacher unions and other educationists rush to submit their responses to the lengthy draft curriculum statement released for public comment at the end of July. The deadline for responses is today.
One area of concern is that there are a number of new learning areas that significant stakeholders feel are beyond the redemption of light revision. They say there is not enough time for necessary major rewriting, considering that the Department of Education wants the revised version, incorporating public responses, finalised within about three months.
There is also anxiety about how the department will now handle and adequately evaluate the mass and variety of responses. Consensus seems to be emerging that implementing the new curriculum cannot take place as early as the department intends 2005 but should be delayed by at least a year.
Minister of Education Kader Asmal released the draft curriculum statement about two months ago. It consisted of an overview of the whole curriculum and detailed descriptions of the eight learning areas. The statement more than 1 000 pages long was the latest stage in the process Asmal initiated last year, when he appointed Professor Linda Chisholm to lead a review of Curriculum 2005, which Asmal’s predecessor, Sibusiso Bengu, introduced in the mid-1990s.
Political flack followed: some interpreted Asmal’s move as an attempt to subvert the new curriculum, which had heavy African National Congress backing. But many educationists welcomed the review, pointing out that among other problems the original form of Curriculum 2005 was so jargon-laden that it left teachers floundering.
Asmal and Chisholm were at pains to explain that the curriculum’s underpinning teaching and learning philosophy, outcomes-based education (OBE), was not up for review, but its initial expression as Curriculum 2005 was. In the event, the achievements of Chisholm’s review committee received near-universal acclaim for streamlining the conceptually confusing original version. Chisholm’s review then led to the formulation of the draft curriculum statement.
The Director General in the Department of Education, Thami Mseleku, says the ministerial project committee for streamlining Curriculum 2005 will analyse all comments and present this analysis to the department’s senior management.
On this basis, the department will ”report to the minister and … formulate professional advice/recommendations relating to the content, extent, implications and nature of revisions to be incorporated or not”. Asmal will then judge which recommendations ”warrant inclusion in the revised national curriculum statement”.
Mseleku points out that the department has taken steps to extend the contracts of education experts who worked on the eight learning areas. ”This will ensure access to the entire expertise of the working groups” for finalising the curriculum statement.
But problems certainly lie in store, now that educationists have had more time though not, they say, enough to study the draft curriculum. There are eight new learning areas, and three receive especial criticism from a variety of commentators natural sciences, arts and culture, and languages.
”Natural sciences receive by far the most stringent of our comments,” says Sue Muller, director of curriculum matters for the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa). ”It’s hopeless.”
Scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Pretoria say the draft document, if implemented in its present form, ”could do more damage than good to South Africa’s science education at school level”. It ”will be an absolute disaster”, says a scientist. A petition to Asmal on this learning area is being arranged.
But Naptosa largely endorses the learning areas of technology, maths, social sciences, and economic and management sciences. ”These just need minor tweaking,” Muller says.
On the other hand, the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) feels ”almost all the learning areas need the same amount of [revision] work”, according to Muavia Gallie, national coordinator of Sadtu’s curriculum task team.
Mseleku told the Mail & Guardian that ”if substantive changes are deemed necessary”, the department would consider extending the time available for revisions.
Sadtu is particularly concerned that, while the draft curriculum would be effective in imparting knowledge and skills to learners, it could not meet its stated aim of inculcating ”values and attitudes”. ”These are the values in our Constitution,” says Gallie, ”and the curriculum doesn’t have enough on this.”
Teacher participation in the process of forming and then implementing what will become national education policy is another area of concern for Sadtu. Gallie says the process has not focused enough on ”empowering teachers and Sadtu will be vociferous on this point in its submission to the education department”.
The Suid-Afrikaanse Onderwysers-unie (SAOU) also expresses reservations here: ”The country has more than 300 000 teachers,” says the CEO of the SAOU, Pieter Martins. ”Have even 10% seen the draft statement?” Like other stakeholders, the SAOU is doubtful about how the education department will handle the mass of responses to the draft statement.
”We met the department,” Martins says, ”but I don’t know how they’ll deal with [the responses]. The department didn’t elaborate on its plan.”
Mseleku says Asmal will announce the revised curriculum statement as national education policy by January.
* Meanwhile, in response to the overwhelming reaction to requests for public comment on the revised statement, Asmal announced yesterday on SAfm’s The Tim Modise Show that he would hold a public ministerial hearing on November 13 in Cape Town. Details will follow.