It is always appropriate, after a reasonable period, to review the functioning of any law, regulation or policy with a view to seeing what can be improved. That is the source of human development and must be welcomed. However, the timing and nature of any review are not self-evident and need to be defined.
A review of outcomes based education (OBE) in South Africa would note that it is barely a decade old – it was first introduced in 1998 – and it is important to appreciate that this curriculum change process is the first comprehensive revision since the demise of apartheid. It was “streamlined and simplified” following the Chisholm report, but the fundamentals have remained intact.
Second, any review would have to take note that this radical new approach was delivered in a context that was highly uneven, with schools and teachers at different levels of development (and under-developmentÂ). That makes any policy implementation a huge challenge in that the messages, the curriculum support materials and even the policies have to speak to various constituencies, themselves often divided and within a context of education itself as a “contested terrain”.
With regard to the nature of the review we must know that this is not intended to lead us into a position where we abandon the course we have chosen. If we have strayed from the path we must get back on to it, but we have no intention of turning back after such a short distance.
Having said that, I note the following about the introduction of OBE into South African schools.First, I am a strong supporter of OBE, understood as a system in which teachers take professional decisions about the achievement of prescribed outcomes by their learners. I know there are other interpretations, and many details that underlay such a definition (and causes endless difficulties) but as a teacher I do believe it can only be a good thing for teachers to be given a set of desirable outcomes and to devise learning programmes that will best assist their learners to achieve these.
Second, not all teachers are the same, and that was perhaps a near-fatal flaw in the system. Before 1994 many teachers had been involved in the process of curriculum reform, albeit outside the law, under the banner of “People’s Education for People’s Power”. The rationale was that if the authorities didn’t provided a decent curriculum you created one for yourself and prepared your own teaching materials collectively, voluntarily and for the good of others and the country.
These progressive teachers were well-informed and well-read on the theory and practice of the curriculum, (and, of course, the “hidden curriculum”). They were active and committed and worked long hours to give learners hope beyond apartheid. They were leaders of both educational and social change.
I fear that, as policy makers, we assumed too much in changing our curriculum. What we saw were teachers who had deep inadequacies, albeit none of their own making. Their own schooling had been poor and their training as teachers often poorer. Content knowledge was lacking and what was taught at many of the teacher colleges related more to control of children than to effective teaching and learning.
The related error was the assumption that teachers were inherently driven to work hard and do well. After all, we thought, activist teachers we had worked with might have been prevented by the authorities from doing their proper jobs but they spent hours after school and at weekends overcoming these limitations. doing whatever they could, all in the interests of the child. Regrettably, we seem to have lost that revolutionary spirit and have not been able to replace it with a professional ethos that has the same effect.
We see a lack of commitment to the task and to the child and teachers constantly ask to be ‘capacitated” or “workshopped” before anything becomes possible. Confidence was brutally sapped from many people under apartheid and we must appreciate the caution people exhibit in regard to taking a lead. But having grasped power from the apartheid regime and been given control over the quality of education too many teachers have simply given it away again, waiting to be told what, when and how and absolving themselves of responsibility.
There were assumptions, too, about teaching and learning materials. Teachers were to design and produce their own and children would use available local materials to formulate and solve problems. However, the conditions under which most were teaching and learning were wholly inadequate for any approach requiring inquiry or research given the absence of books and other materials in schools.
There were also errors of design. These were identified early on and corrected, but the legacy still pervades the system. We lost sight of some of the basics – especially the good ones such as learning tables and proficiency in reading and writing. Textbooks were devalued and teachers who did not use group work were missing out. Time, texts and tests – the three elements of a successful education system – were “designed out” of the curriculum and teachers did many things except teach, while children did many things without actually learning.
In retrospect I think it can be argued that there were errors of process in introducing the new curriculum. The implementation plan began with grade one and was intended to move through to grade 12 (hence “Curriculum 2005”) in a linear fashionÂ, but at various stages, in response to various imperatives, “leaps” were made, with more than one grade starting in a particular year, suggesting that the logic may have been flawed.
But since the full introduction of the new curriculum this year we have also seen the effects of an external examination on the system in terms of its ability to drive change, and one has to ask if we should have considered other methods: phase by phase perhaps or in reverse order.
The other criticism of the process was, of course, the now notorious “cascade model”. This is a pity, since a properly managed and materials-driven cascade can be effective and was probably required to reach all our teachers as rapidly as possible. There were two concerns about the preparation of teachers: one was the content, quality and consistency of training (compounded by the different levels teachers had reached), the other was that the system of providing direct training to teachers set up serious tensions between them and their principals and subject advisors. All of these have compromised, to some degree, the OBE implementation process.
The department has taken various steps to address these flawed assumptions about teachers and schools, the flawed design and the implementation concerns. These include Dr Linda Chisholm’s substantial refinement of the curriculum, which eliminated much of the complexity, removed unnecessarily complex terminology and reduced the number of outcomes to be achieved.
The National Curriculum Statement (NCS) for grades one to nine became, for a while, the “Revised NCS”, and all the amendments were well received and have guided us ever since.
For example, in the drafting, after the Chisholm amendments, of the NCS for grades 10 to 12 strong account was taken of these developments. The statements are far more specific than they would otherwise have been and teachers have welcomed the greater sense of direction and advice. The specificity has also enabled us to move more rapidly to a national examination system at grade 12 and will have the same effect with regard to the forthcoming national assessments of grade three and six learners.
We must recognise that OBE is potentially a progressive and liberatory approach to education. However, in a country like South Africa, with its deep inequalities, the sad irony is that it has been most liberatory for the best-trained and resourced teachers and schools, while the rest have found it to be a burden and a disappointment. Instead of enhancing the professionalism of teachers and drawing on their wisdom and experience it has caused many to retreat, to claim confusion and to be disempowered.
However, recent changes have been introduced to counter this.
One of the most dramatic lessons has come from the Kha ri Gude Mass Literacy Campaign, recently launched by the education ministerÂ. The materials developed for this campaign have already won international recognition and they guide the teacher on a daily basis through the entire learning programme, as does the Foundations for Learning Campaign, which spells out in detail the materials and the daily teaching programme needed in every classroom.
Schools have even been given learning programmes that may be used by teachers who need such guidance as they plan for the year. Assessment guidelines provided to all teachers make specific reference to the basis skills which get lost on the way. The message is clear: reading, writing and calculating are firmly back in our schools.
Duncan Hindle is director general of education