A school curriculum for the few, not the many — that’s one of the most serious concerns teacher unions and educationists are voicing about the new further education and training (FET) curriculum for grades 10, 11 and 12.
The curriculum is due to be implemented in grade 10 next year, leading in 2008 to a new school-leaving exam called the National Senior Certificate, which will replace matric.
Further concerns are that implementation will be extremely uneven across the provinces, that too few teachers appear to have been trained to manage the two new subjects the curriculum makes compulsory — mathematical literacy and life orientation — and that there are no plans to recruit the larger number of teachers that will be required for new areas such as arts and culture.
The curriculum theoretically offers 29 subjects, from which each pupil must select seven. Four of these are compulsory — two languages (one of them the pupil’s home language), life orientation and either mathematics or the newly conceived mathematical literacy.
But many of the new offerings — such as technological subjects and arts and culture — require infrastructural and capital resources many schools lack, says Mary Metcalfe, head of Wits University’s school of education. “This means disadvantaged schools can offer only a limited range of the curriculum’s subjects, so that what we have is not a new curriculum for all but [one] for the few.”
Mafika Cele, of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu), points out that 11 of the 29 subjects are vocational in orientation, including tourism, agricultural technology and electrical technology. However, “the majority of these subjects are not available in most of our schools”.
And Sue Muller, director of curriculum matters for the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa), argues that resource -discrepancies between schools mean the curriculum will “perpetuate the divide between schools who can afford necessary teaching equipment and those who can’t”.
Penny Vinjevold, deputy director general for FET in the national Department of Education, responded that all provinces have -carried out audits of -existing subject offerings and are developing redress plans for implementation next year.
Vinjevold said some schools have been identified for a maths and science focus, and these “will be provided with additional resources to offer information technology [the new version of computer studies]”. This will also happen with arts, technology and service subjects.
She added that subject-specific teacher training has been completed in seven provinces, while training has taken place and will continue in Eastern Cape and Limpopo.”
Vinjevold conceded that the quality of training has been uneven, but said “there have been many reports of excellent training”.
Particular attention has been and will be paid to mathematical literacy and life orientation, she said. “Provincial education departments, universities, publishers and teacher unions have expended enormous effort and funds in training teachers over the past two years in these two subjects … In addition, the Department of Education has prepared detailed teacher-support materials for all grade 10 teachers of mathematical literacy and life orientation.”
Metcalfe said there are also longer-term implications for implementing the curriculum that are not being addressed. “For example, where are art, drama and music teachers being recruited? They’re not, yet we need to be recruiting now to have some teachers of these subjects in place in a few years’ time.”
Provincial and national education departments “constantly promote teaching of all subjects”, Vinjevold said. “More can and will be done to recruit teachers of the arts subjects, as there is an increase in learners taking these subjects in grades 10 to 12.”
Sadtu and Naptosa stress that the responsibility for delivering the curriculum at school level lies with the provinces — and that is where problems are likely to occur.