The new school year is underway and teachers and learners in Grade 10 are struggling to accommodate one other. Many Grade 10 teachers are being exposed to OBE for the first time while their learners have three years’ of experience of OBE under their belts.
In addition, Grade 10 learners have knowledge gaps in subjects like Accounting and Business Economics for which their Senior Phase EMS learning programme has not adequately prepared them. On the other hand, Mathematics and Natural Sciences teachers are not always equipped to relate the curriculum to society – something their learners have come to expect.
The national Department of Education (DoE) has acknowledged that this situation is less than ideal. The explanation given is that the planned implementation of C2005 was interrupted by the review of C2005 and the revision of the GET curriculum that followed. For the sake of continuity, designing a new curriculum for FET could only begin once the Revised National Curriculum Statement for GET had been completed.
But that is only a partial truth. Another process was initiated in 1999 to address the very problem the Grade 10s are facing now. It came to be known as the Review and Modernisation (RAM) of the FET band. The RAM process was designed to achieve the following aims (DoE, 1999):
– the establishment of learning outcomes for each level of the FET band (based on the Interim Syllabus or NATED 550)
– the design of FET learning programmes aimed at achieving these learning
outcomes
– providing training to equip teachers, managers and officials with the skills and knowledge required to implement
learning programmes effectively
– laying the foundation for the introduction of C2005 in the FET band in 2003.
Substantial progress was made in
mapping learning outcomes for subject areas like Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Languages and Computer Studies. However, during the course of 2000, a decision was taken to halt the RAM process.
The short-sightedness of that decision has come back to haunt us in the form of the curriculum confusion experienced by this year’s – and possibly even next year’s – Grade 10 teachers and learners. It seems unlikely that the new National Curriculum Statement for FET will be implemented in Grade 10 next year as originally envisaged. There is clearly insufficient time for adequate training of teachers to take place or for high quality learning and teaching support materials to be developed.
The question is: what happened to all the work that was done as part of the RAM process? Why has it not resurfaced in the file that hasrecently been distributed nationally to support teachers as they phase OBE into the FET band from now until 2005?
Looking through the 170-page file that is going out to teachers (produced by the Consultative Forum including representatives of Departments of Education (national and provincial), the Publishers’ Association of South Africa, teacher unions and associations and South African Qualifications Authority) made my heart sink.
Although there is some useful information in the file, a less inviting document would be difficult to imagine. The text of the file is too small to read with ease and there is not one graphic to be seen. To make matters worse, the file is riddled with typographical and grammatical errors.
Let’s remember that this is likely to be the first guide to OBE that FET teachers will actually try to read. Which of these teachers is likely to be turned on to OBE by this file?
There are thousands of communications companies out there who could have taken this raw material, given it a thorough edit and proofread, jazzed up the layout and included some artwork and photographs.
A professional job of this nature may have gone some way to convincing Grade 10 teachers that the DoE was offering them the lifeline they so badly need at this time.
Although training of Grade 10 teachers, based on this file, was scheduled to take place throughout the country, to date this has only happened sporadically.
Many of us believe in OBE and support the DoE’s efforts. But poor planning and shoddy implementation make it difficult for OBE to work.