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Analysts cautious about South Africa’s education changes

7 July 2010

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga’s new changes to South Africa’s school curriculum were cautiously welcomed by analysts yesterday.

The changes, together with an action plan known as Towards the Realisation of Schooling 2025, were to be gazetted by the end of next month and implemented in 2012. The content was drawn from the existing curriculum and updated, eliminating gaps and fixing imbalances.

Some of the changes are:

• Pupils will have the option of learning in their mother tongue for the first three years of schooling;
• Reduction in the number of projects for pupils, with every subject in each grade consisting of its own concise curriculum, mapping out what teachers must teach and assess;
• The number of subjects for the intermediate phase pupil is to decrease from eight to six. This means that in grades 4 to 6, technology will be combined with science; arts and culture will be combined with life orientation; and economic and management sciences will be taught from Grade 7; and
• With regards to symbol rating for end-of-year results, grade 3, 6 and 8 pupils would do externally set assessments for literacy and numeracy.

This was the first time since former education minister Kader Asmal’s tenure that SA had a national plan for school-level education, said Dr Martin Prew, director of the Centre for Education Policy Development, Evaluation & Management.

Despite the plan’s positive features “” focusing on literacy and aiming to ensure more black students got into university with maths and science qualifications “” there were problems, he said.

Ms Motshekga said the changes to the curriculum, included the introduction of external exams for grades 3, 6, 9 and the reduction of the number of projects pupils had to produce, eradicated portfolios of work and ensured each subject would have “œa single, comprehensive and concise curriculum assessment policy statement that will provide details on what teachers ought to teach and assess on a grade-by-grade and subject-by-subject basis”.

Teachers had to deal with “œfour or five” documents on what was required and whittling this down to one was welcome, said Independent Examinations Board CEO Anne Oberholzer .

The reduction of the number of subjects children have to study in grades 4 to 6 was “œa good move”, said JET Education Services CEO Godwin Khosa .

Development Bank of Southern Africa education specialist Graeme Bloch said “œno announcement is a magic bullet … there are so many other things at stake, like libraries, internet connections, good teaching “¦ “

Compiled with the assistance of Business Day and Independent Online.