Comment on the draft National Curriculum Statement (NCS) culminated with public hearings in Cape Town on November 13. Through learning outcomes and assessment standards, the draft NCS stipulates minimum requirements for each learning area from grade R to grade nine.
The draft NCS has been hailed by many as a positive step in the direction of setting national standards on a grade-by-grade basis. Responses from a wide range of stakeholders have praised the national Department of Education for its attempt to specify the progression of knowledge, skills, values and attitudes from one grade to the next for each of the eight learning areas.
Unsurprisingly all learning area statements will require some revision. Many submissions point to the need to strengthen progression in all learning areas, as well as to check for unnecessary overlap within and between learning areas.
Comments on most learning areas seem to include a concern with overloading the curriculum by specifying too many assessment standards for each grade. Those involved in the process of making the final revisions would do well to remember that the NCS is intended to set out minimum requirements rather than to provide a comprehensive set of standards for General Education and Training.
In my parting shot of the year, I would like to focus briefly on some of the responses I have come across in two key areas of the NCS – science and religion.
The Natural Sciences Learning Area Statement appears to be one that will require substantial reworking. Not being a scientist myself, I am reflecting the concerns raised in a petition to the minister widely endorsed by science educators around the country.
Their criticisms include the fact that:
– the assessment standards give little indication of the depth and breadth of achievement that learners need to demonstrate;
– the choice of content stipulated by some of the assessment standards seems quite arbitrary;
– statements of content are often narrow, giving teachers little choice no matter what context they are teaching in;
– there are too many assessment standards, which will lead to curriculum overload and mililate against teaching in a learner- centred way;
– insufficient attention has been given to the progression of concepts and skills from one grade to the next;
– the treatment of the various strands of the natural sciences (Life and Living, Earth and Beyond, Matter and Materials, Energy and Change) is fragmented and there is little horizontal integration between the different strands at the same level;
– an inadequate attempt has been made to examine the natural sciences in the context of human rights and environmental issues.
In the interests of strengthening the teaching and learning of science – one of the weakest areas of the school curriculum – these concerns will need to be addressed systematically. This may necessitate extending the timeframe for declaring the NCS national policy from January to March or April 2002.
Turning to religion and the NCS, much consternation has been expressed by the Pestalozzi Trust and others belonging to the home education movement about the Life Orientation Learning Area Statement. Their chief worry is that their children will be obliged to learn about all major world religions, rather than focus only on their particular brand of Christianity.
It is as if Rip Van Winkle has only now woken up after being asleep since 1994. Where were the home schoolers when the religion in education policy was being formulated? Where were they when the country opted for a multi-faith approach in line with the requirements of the Constitution?
A multi-faith approach is inclusive and argues that schools should offer “religion education” as opposed to the “religious education” of days gone by. The distinction, as I understand it, has to do with informing learners about and encouraging respect for all the major world religions rather than promoting the philosophy of one particular faith. In a secular state such as ours, the latter is considered to be the domain of the home rather than the school.
Strangely it is the home schoolers who are now accusing the government of indoctrination. What they fail to appreciate is that the draft NCS is the least doctrinaire statement on religion in the school curriculum that we have ever seen in this country. Perhaps this unfortunate reading of the NCS by home schoolers is a result of their conflation of home and school. In any event, I am convinced that they do their children a disservice by teaching them that there is only one truth.
May the spirit of goodwill prevail as we come to the end of a very important year for the school curriculum in South Africa – a year in which many significant policy gains have been made.
The focus of this column next year will be on how schools can begin to work with the NCS.
– The Teacher/M&G Media, Johannesburg, December 2001.