IT is encouraging that government is reviewing one of its flagship projects – Curriculum 2005 – so early in the day. It provides us all with a second opportunity to ensure that this bold experiment succeeds.
The extremely important process of streamlining Curriculum 2005 is set to begin later this month. A Ministerial Project Committee, headed by Linda Chisholm, includes Edcent Williams, Chief Director of School Education; Salama Hendricks, Director of School Education; Lebs Mphahlele, member of the National Centre for Curriculum Research and Development; John Volmink, Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Natal-Durban; Penny Vinjevold of the Joint Education Trust, and Fathima Dada, former CEO of Maskew Miller Longman.
This committee publicly called for nominations in November 2000 and has since appointed teams to write a National Curriculum Statement. Such a statement will spell out — in clear and simple language — learning outcomes and assessment standards for each learning programme at various levels and phases. It will also address the concerns expressed in the Review of Curriculum 2005 (May 2000) about curriculum overload. Decisions will need to be made about how time should be allocated to each of the eight learning areas in each phase to ensure that adequate attention is given to the “gateway” learning areas like Languages, Mathematics and Natural Sciences.
The National Curriculum Statement will also attempt to provide a clear description of the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that a learner will be expected to achieve by the end of the General Education and Training Band.
Twelve working groups have been established to prepare the learning area statements that will make up the National Curriculum Statement. They include a Grade R and Foundation Phase working group; a working group for each of the eight learning areas (for Grade 4-9); one for human rights and inclusivity across all grades; one for qualifications across all grades and one for implementation across all grades. These working groups comprise fifty percent departmental officials and fifty percent professionals located in universities, colleges, NGOs, professional associations and councils.
Streamlining Curriculum 2005 presents many challenges. The first is the challenge of transformation. Curriculum 2005 has often been presented as a vehicle for transformation. Proponents of it have claimed that it would assist in the transition from an autocratic to a democratic and more equal society, and from a “closed” economy to a “globalised” one. (Department of Education, 1998) Commentators like Jonathan Jansen have questioned the idea that there is ever a direct correlation between the outputs of the education system and those of the economy. Nevertheless, the design of the curriculum needs, at some level, to be informed by the needs of the economy. And this means that there needs to be a very clear focus on the “gateway” learning areas.
However, if this were our only concern, certain crucial aspects of the school curriculum like history and human rights education would be under threat of exclusion. While learning about the history of our country and the history of human rights abuses may not lead directly to finding a job, it may make learners more empathetic and responsible members of society. Restoring the moral fabric of our society in this way may, in the long run, prove to be as important as growing our economy.
It is for this reason that the Review of Curriculum 2005 recommended that human rights should be infused across all learning areas rather than be treated as a focus in only two learning areas – Human and Social Sciences and Life Orientation. There is a danger, however, that in trying to deal with human rights across all learning areas, it may become watered down or lost altogether.
A second challenge deals with coherence across learning areas. In the first attempt at designing a new curriculum, insufficient attention was given to technical coherence across learning areas. This resulted in certain features of the curriculum being interpreted in different ways by different learning area committees. Another important consideration is consistency in the level of outcomes for each grade or phase across different learning areas. Unnecessary overlap between learning areas should also be avoided. The managers of this process would do well to appoint a further working group to pay attention to these and other matters of coherence across learning areas.
A third challenge has to do with the place of the earth sciences (such things as geology, astronomy and climatology) in the curriculum. Traditionally, aspects of these were included in physical geography and were taught by the geography teacher. In Curriculum 2005, the earth sciences became part of the Natural Sciences learning area. The critical question is who can teach the earth sciences most effectively? While there are Natural Sciences teachers who have included these aspects in their own studies, it is usually geography teachers who are most comfortable handling them. This challenge could be met by flexible team teaching arrangements. But these are not always easy to manage at school level.
A fourth and final challenge is to do with implementation. No matter how state- of-the-art our streamlined curriculum may be, it will only be as good as the teachers who are implementing it. Since brand new learning areas like Arts and Culture, Technology and Economics and Management Sciences appear to be here to stay, immediate and urgent attention needs to be given to developing teachers who can implement these learning areas skillfully and creatively.
— The Teacher/Mail & Guardian, Johannesburg, January 2001.