Changing Curriculum: studies on outcomes-based education in South Africa (My New World)

299 Pages·1999·17.27 MB·English

by  J. Jansen

Changing Curriculum
Studies on
Outcomes-based Education
in South Africa
EDITORS
JONATHAN JANSEN
PAM CHRISTIE
Juta & Co Ltd
First Published 1999
O Juta & Co, Ltd 1999
P 0 Box 14373, Kenwyn 7790
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. In
terms of the Copyright Act 98 of 1978, no part of this book
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
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tem, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN 0 7021 5063 0
Typesetting by THED ESI(:NH OUSE
Cover design by Warren Nelson
Editing by Carol Balchin
Printed and bound in South Africa by
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Preface
The myth persists that scholarly work is a hermit-like activity in which bespectacled
individuals lock themselves away in dimly lit rooms to emerge after long periods of time
with the finished work. I doubt that this was ever true in the history of academic writing
and it certainly does not reflect the origins and production of Changing Curriculum: Stdes
on Outcomes-based Education in South Africa. It is for this reason that I acknowledge with
gratitude the enormous contributions of the many different people who have made this
work possible.
I begin where most prefaces end. My sincere thanks to Shakila Thakurpersad,
Programme Administrator in the Centre for Education Research, Evaluation and Policy
(CEREP), where the original ideas for critical engagement with outcomes-based
education was first hatched. Shakila is one of the most patient and critical readers of
texts in production and played a very important role in editing chapters from different
computer disks, communicating editorial decisions with authors, harassing authors to
send the next version of their chapters, and keeping the project on course.
Thank you, Shakila
Within the Faculty of Education at the University of Durban-Westville (UDW), I have
been privilegecl to work with several colleagues who are developing into world-class
scholars. Their critical instincts, analytical strengths and social commitment lie behind
the emergence of this writing project. It was here that the idea first surfaced to convene
a. national conference on outconles-based education at ULW shortly after the state
announced the :Jvent of this new curriculum to be introduced into all schools in January
1998. In retrospect, that conference launched some of the most sophisticated analyses
and in-depth criticism of ORE by teachers, policy ;tnalysts, researchers, education offi-
cials and our senior students. And the ideas and inventions from that conference inspired
this book, Changing Cumiculum. 1 would therefore like to thank Enver Motala and Renuka
Vithal for bringing the idea of such a conference to the attention of colleagues. And I
thank Michael Sarnuel, Betty Govinden, Sbu Rayene, Rubby Dhunpath, Mafika Cele,
Bususuwe (Peggy) Msimango, Naclira Manickchund, Reshma Sookraj for the critical
engagement which inspired Inany of our writings on ORE and to plan for this book.
I should also thank Garry Rosenberg, editor and publisher at Juta's, for his insightful
and challenging contributions to the ideas in the early version of the manuscript and
his craftful shaping of the final version of the book. It is rare in the publishing world to
find a person who is not only an outstanding tnanager, hut also a very competent
intellectual who ably engages authors and editors within their own fields of inquiry. I
will remain gratefill to his influence well beyond the confines of the monograph.
1 thank my co-editor, Professor Patn Christie, with whom I share Inany curriculum
battles from our joint chairpersonship of the NEPI (National Education Policy
Investigation) Curriculum Committee, searching for curriculum policy specifications
for the democratic movement in the early 1990s. I am delighted that we could con-
tinue the partnership through this writing project. Pam's meticulous editing of the draft
manuscripts and her engagement with the developing ideas behind Changing Cumiculum
significantly enhanced the focus and quality of the final product.
And I thank the contributing authors. Changing Cumiculum has been very fortunate to
draw on some of South Africa's most distinguished education scholars. Drawn from
different university campuses, non-governmental organisations, government departments,
schools and research centres, each one of these contributors has been thorough and
inventive in the ways in which they have prepared their individual contributions; and
they have allowed a critical engagement with their developing ideas in ways that enriched
the entire project - authors and friends, the same people.
Finally, I would like to thank my family, my wife Grace and children Mikhail and Sara-
Jane, for allowing me so much time in the late evening and early morning to enable
this book to be completed. For my part, I dedicate this book to my beautiful and talented
daughter, Sara-Jane, who entered Grade I in the year of OBE implementation. For her
sake, and for the sake of all South Africa's children, I hope that OBE succeeds.
Jonathan D Jansen
University of Durban-Westville
Changing Curriculum:
Studies on Outcomes-based Education
in South Africa
SECTION A
Chapter 1: Setting the Scene: Historiographies of Curriculum
Policy in South Africa
Jonathan D Jansen 3
SECTION B
Chapter 2: Competing Education & Training Policy Discourses:
A 'Systemic' versus 'Unit Standards' Framework
Andre Kraak 2 1
Chapter 3: Positively Mystical: An Interpretation of South Africa's
Outcomes-based National Qualifications Framework
Roger Deacon & Ben Parker
Chapter 4: Outcomes-based Education Has Different Forms
Cliff Malcolm
SECTION C
Chapter 5: Critical Outcomes: Political Paradoxes
Jane Skinner
Chapter 6: Outcomes-based Education: Teacher Identity and the
Politics of Participation
Jean Baxen & Crain Soudien 131
Chapter 7: Why Outcomes-based Education Will Fail: An Elaboration
Jonathan D Jansen 145
Chapter 8: The Implementation of OBET in South Africa:
Pathway to Success or Recipe for Failure?
Haroon Mahomed 157
Chapter 9: Critical Responses to 'Why OBE Will Fail'
Mahomed Rasool 171
Chapter 10: Integrating Differences: Implications of an Outcomes+
based National Qualifications Framework for the Roles
and Competencies of Teachers
Ken Harley & Ben Parker 181
SECTION D
INSIDEC LASSROOMS
Chapter 11: 'A Very Noisy OBE': The Implementation of OBE in
Grade 1 Classrooms
Jonathan D Jansen 203
Chapter 12 : Outcomes-based Education: Issues of Competence and
Equity in Curriculum and Assessment
Ian Bellis 219
Chapter 13: A Destination Without a Map: Premature
Implementation of Curriculum 2005?
Emilia Potenza & Mareka Monyokolo
Chapter 14: Outcomes-based Assessment: The Need for a Common
Vision of What Counts and How to Count It
Meg Pahad 247
SECTION E
INSIGHTSIM, PLICATIONS
Chapter 15: OBE and Unfolding Policy Trajectories: Lessons to be
Learned
Pam Christie
SECTION A
Introduction,
Overview
Thisp age intentionally left blank
CHAPTER 1
Setting the Scene: Historiographies of
Curriculum Policy in South Africa
JONATHAN D JANSEN
UNIVERSITY OF DURBAN-WESTVILLE
The precise date and sequence of events leading to the introduction of outcomes-
based education (OBE) into South Africa's education and training system are not
clear; what is clear, however, is that since the mid-1990s OBE has triggered the
single most important curriculum controversy in the history of South African edu-
cation. Not since the De Lange Commission Report of the 1980s (Human Sciences
Research Council (HSRC) 1981),h as such a fierce and public debate ensued -
not only on the modalities of change implied by OBE, but on the very philosophical
vision and political claims upon which this model of education is based. It is timely,
therefore, to introduce a text on outcomes-based education which takes a step
back from the immediate debates and controversies about implementation, and
steps outside of the mechanical and uncritical 'how to' monographs emerging
from some distance education institutions. By contrast, this book is an attempt
to sketch the broader context for outcomes-based education by presenting
competing perspectives on OBE; evaluating the different policy claims and
assumptions and silences governing OBE; tracing the consequences of OBE for
teaching and learning in different educational contexts; and examining the
possibilities of OBE for contributing to educational transformation after apartheid.
The historiography of OBE in South Africa is itself a matter of controversy. I wish
to present one view, based not only on personal involvement in the process of
exploring what was then called curriculum 'policy options' for the extra-
parliamentary democratic movement, but also on a critical reading of some recent
attempts to sketch the trajectory of curriculum policy in South Africa since 1990
(Christie, 1997; Kraak, 1998).