Memory and critical education: Approaches in the District Six Museum

Abstract

This article begins with the argument that education has become an important site of activity in museums around the world. This development has been of crucial significance for South Africa where many new museums have come into being and where old museums are now taking new courses. The challenge that these museums are having to confront is how to deal with the question of their public education responsibilities with respect to issues such as race, identity, nation and nation-building. How does the museum tell its story in ways that are inclusive and at the same time critical? How these challenges play themselves out in a museum such as the District Six Museum is important to talk about. What this discussion about the District Six Museum reveals is how little attention is paid to forms of public education in institutions outside of the school in South Africa. It is significant that the museum, which has come to play such a significant role in the reimagination of South Africa and is assuming in the intentions of the new government such a pivotal role in teaching South Africans about their pasts, is understood so poorly. The article uses the District Six Museum example to look critically at what a new museum educational practice might consist of.     

Integrated Education and Black Development in Post-apartheid South Africa: Critical analyses

With the integration of the education system in liberated South Africa, social development expectations should be justifiably high, especially for the country's long-oppressed black majority. The concretisation of these expectations is being, or will be, determined by a myriad of converging and diverging possibilities and difficulties. This article focuses on the problems of education and development in post-apartheid South Africa, with a sustained emphasis on the importance of looking beyond the current political triumph. The new areas of constant and consistent focus must become, the author proposes, the disturbingly uneven terrains of educational attainment and long-term socio-economic development. By stressing the urgency of these cases, the article highlights actual possibilities as well as the magnitude of hindering factors in educational development that are still affecting millions of lives in the new South Africa. The article ends with a call for the pragmatic reconstitution of South Africa's development education actualities to make this country a prosperous space for all South Africans now and into the future.     

Rethinking Learner-Centred Education: Bridging Knowledge Cultures

Abstract

This article argues that learner-centred education needs to shift from a discussion only on pedagogical activities such as group-work and other cooperative learning strategies. It suggests that the focus of learner-centred education should be on the cultural world of the African child and how this influences the way in which he/she learns Western science. The African child often experiences cognitive dissonance/perturbation when learning Western science. The article draws on insights from the theory of collateral learning which was originally developed by Jegede. It argues that unless policymakers and teachers take into consideration the cultural frameworks of learners, there will not be a sound basis for improving school science and school mathematics in South Africa. Spending more on resources and increasingly testing learners, as is currently done in South Africa, will not improve school science in South Africa. Improving school science in part depends on rethinking leaner-centred education, which means critically looking at the important role that cultural frameworks of learners play in learning Western science.     

Quality and indicators of quality in South African education: a critical appraisal

A major priority for the post-apartheid government in South Africa is the provision of a universal quality education. This article examines quality in the context of education reform, attempts to conceptualise quality, and critically reviews both the discourse and practice of quality interventions in South Africa from the late 1980s to the present. It is argued that work on quality has been influenced by the modernising agenda, and that this has led to two differing research strands. It is also suggested that the work on quality has been affected by the way in which education change is viewed. Three arguments are made in relation to change: that change must be viewed as a process rather than an event; that positive mandated change at the policy and legislation level has not necessarily led to change at the school level; and that education change has emphasised structure and putting systems in place rather than pedagogy and the processes of teaching and learning. The paper concludes by identifying the gaps in policy and research on quality. It calls for more qualitative and empirical school and classroom research, and suggests strategic areas for quality enhancement at the school level.     

Promoting sustainable development through whole school approaches: an international,intercultural teacher education research and development project

This paper focuses on a British Council funded Higher Education Link project involving three institutions—Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) in the UK and two South African institutions, the University of South Africa (UNISA) and Rhodes University. The link is a research and development project that has three main research strands: contextual profiling that will establish the applicability of a European teacher education project to the South African context, evaluative materials development and piloting predicated on a respect for indigenous and contextual knowledge, and impact analysis that will examine the role of multidirectional intergenerational mentoring in disseminating messages about sustainable lifestyles. The project is strongly influenced by the South African Revised National Curriculum statements pertaining to environment and an analysis of the impact that these materials have had on promoting whole school approaches to environmental education in South Africa. The link's initial purpose is to develop advanced certificate in education (ACE) course materials that will promote whole school approaches to environmental education, based on developing concepts of collaboration, pupil participation, educational process and action in schools in South Africa. Materials from the MMU‐based, European Commission funded Sustainability Education in European Primary Schools (SEEPS) Project will be adapted for use in South Africa by UNISA and Rhodes.

This paper reports on the development of the project and explores some of its activities and results to date. It documents how the project team approached the integrating redevelopment of SEEPS ideas and materials to use these resources in the design of continuing professional development (CPD) activities for ACE courses in environmental education at UNISA and Rhodes. The second section is written in semi‐dialogue form to try to reflect the nature of the discussions that occurred between the partners in the link during meetings in the UK. This dialogue outlines the conceptual and philosophical background to the SEEPS Project before examining continuities and tensions that arose in clarifying and situating guiding perspectives for CPD and whole school approaches in and for South African school contexts through the medium of teacher education. The paper also reviews how the South African team are interacting with ideas and materials from SEEPS to clarify whole school approaches to environmental education in South Africa and discusses the contexts within which the outcomes of the link will unfold.     

Reflections on improving teacher performance

Abstract

The debate about declining education standards and quality has been going on for decades. At the centre of this debate has been teacher performance. But the blame for the decline in educational standards and quality of education in South Africa cannot be placed squarely on the shoulders of teachers alone. Society as a whole must accept its share of responsibility too. For the decline or the improvement of the standard and quality of education depends on the roles played by teachers, parents, learners, tertiary institutions, non-governmental organisations and the government. To blame teachers alone misses the core problem, which is at the root of the continuing decline in educational standards and quality in a country which has the biggest economy in Africa. To stem this tide will require a collaborative effort by all these role players. But, more importantly, it will require the restructuring of how teachers are trained, as well as the transformation of school governing bodies, so as to enable them to play the role the South African Schools Act intended them to play. The profession must also be made attractive in order to attract talented matriculants. This will entail improvements in the salary structure and conditions of service of teachers. It will also be necessary to revamp the current teacher in-service training and development system to enable it to play a more meaningful role in assisting teachers to continually refresh and retool their skills in order to cope with the ever-changing teaching and learning environment.     

The effectiveness of a course for helping educators cope with the demands of the IQMS

Abstract

In 2004, the South African Education and Labour Relations Council announced that an agreement had been reached to integrate several existing programmes on quality management in education into a new programme entitled Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS) for School-based educators. In order to help educators in a particular Province of South Africa to cope with the demands of this programme, an Advanced Certificate in Education was instituted. The first cohort of teacher-students taking this particular ACE was subsequently subjected to an empirical survey intended to determine the effectiveness of the training. It was found that although the ACE was deemed to be generally helpful for meeting the IQMS requirements, it also failed in several respects. The survey also exposed several aspects of outcomes-based education with which school educators seem to be constantly struggling. Certain changes will have to be made to the ACE itself, but also to the current South African outcomes-based curriculum approach.     

School quality, clustering and government subsidy in post-apartheid South Africa

This paper examines a range of historical and geographic factors that determine the quality of public school education in post-apartheid South Africa. Empirical analysis shows, first, that population groups are still spatially segregated due to the legacy of apartheid, which implies that, given the positive correlation between school quality and school fees, quality education is concentrated in formerly white, coloured and Indian schools in areas where the majority is non-African. Second, school quality, measured by the learner-educator ratio, improves as school fee and government subsidy increase. In this sense, school fee can be decreased with an increase in government subsidy to maintain school quality. It is also shown that government subsidy is allocated to schools with lower quality and fees, increasing the number of subsidized teachers. To address the current imbalance, financial support to disadvantaged locales and schools should be strengthened further.     

Teaching and learning through multiple intelligences in the outcomes-based education classroom

Abstract

As outcomes-based education forms the foundation of the new school curriculum in South Africa, educators are confronted with the challenge of not only meeting the different needs of individual learners, but also of helping learners (many of them previously disadvantaged) to achieve their maximum potential. One way of realising this ideal is by applying Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences in the classroom. The article provides a discussion on both Gardner's multiple intelligences theory and outcomes-based education in South Africa, as it is believed that together they can contribute to solving some of the present problems in South African education. The article defines the use of MI theory in an OBE classroom and suggests specific ways in which educators worldwide could incorporate the different intelligences in their teaching and learning activities.     

Life in Special Schools in South Africa: Voices of Former Students

We describe educational experiences of people with disabilities who attended special schools in South Africa. We found significant differences in education between White and Black participants in terms of teaching quality, access to therapy and assistive devices, class sizes, subjects, and grades offered. Additional differences were noted between participants with congenital and early-onset disabilities, and those with degenerative or acquired disabilities who moved from a mainstream school to a special school. Thirty-six percent of participants in this study completed their education after Education White Paper 6 (EWP6), South Africa’s inclusive education policy had been implemented. Despite this, findings suggest that all these participants experienced similar challenges as those who received their education during the apartheid era. This study highlights the important need to address the existing “special school” scenario, and effectively implement the principles of EWP6.     

School Effectiveness and School Improvement in Context: The Case of South Africa

This article explores the issue of whether lists of characteristics constituting the effective school are universally valid. It argues that the effectiveness or otherwise of schools must be understood contextually as there are significant differences between both the material and ideological contexts of schooling. The article uses the example of South Africa to demonstrate the difficulties in judging schools in one context using criteria developed in another. Three examples of schools that can be considered effective in the context of the new South Africa are described and discussed and the article concludes by arguing that education for peace and democracy is an essential feature of school effectiveness in South Africa.     

How teachers perceive the new curriculum reform: Lessons from a school district in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

The meanings that a teacher attaches to the new curriculum reforms act as his or her map on the curriculum implementation journey, and these usually determine the success of the education reforms. This research article explores the meanings attached to the new Science curriculum reforms by primary school teachers in a school district in South Africa, where the perceived meanings emanated from, as well as the role they played in the implementation of the reforms in the classroom. It is argued that new curriculum reforms have to take place concurrently with other changes in order for them to have a significant and long-lasting effect. Three possible ways will be suggested that will help the teachers to avoid formulating reform meanings that are not aligned with the vision and goals of the new curriculum.     

High School Students’ Attitudes Towards Spiders: A cross‐cultural comparison

Spiders are traditionally considered to be among the least popular of animals. Current evidence suggests that a negative attitude towards spiders could be influenced by both cultural and evolutionary pressures. Some researchers suggest that science education activities could positively influence students’ perceptions of spiders. Their evidence is, however, ambivalent. Using a five‐point score Likert‐type questionnaire in which the items were developed in a similar way to four of Kellert’s categories of attitude (scientistic, negativistic, naturalistic, and ecologistic) towards invertebrates, we compared the level of knowledge of and attitudes towards spiders of high school students from two countries, Slovakia (n = 354) and South Africa (n = 382). The students represented different cultures and followed dissimilar science education curricula. Only among the Slovakian students there was a statistically significant but low correlation between knowledge and attitude (r = 0.30). The South African students scored higher in the categories of scientistic, naturalistic, and ecologistic attitudes. Comparison of attitude towards spiders of indigenous Africans from coeducational Catholic schools revealed that South African students have greater fear of spiders than Slovakian students, supporting the biological preparedness hypothesis. This hypothesis predicts a greater fear of spiders in South Africa than in Europe since several South African spiders possess venoms that are dangerous to humans. The results of this study are discussed from science education, cultural, and evolutionary perspectives.     

南非高中课程改革的目标、内容及特色

南非高中课程改革是南非新政府在教育领域推行的一项重大改革举措。南非新政府以人人都应该接受教育为目标,努力保障高中学生公平接受高等教育的权利,加快高中教育从知识学习向知识应用的转变,大力提高学生终身学习的能力。南非这种突出学习者中心、结果本位的课程改革,为南非的课程理论发展、教育公平、人才培养质量等做出了有益的探索。     

The idealism of education policies and the realities in schools: the implementation of inclusive education in South Africa

Inclusive education as a global movement emerged over the past 30 years to ensure quality mainstream education for all learners. Since 1994 the newly democratic South Africa also had expectations as well as the political will to change education by adjusting legislation and policies. However, the vision of a truly inclusive education system in South Africa has been difficult to achieve and results regarding the implementation of inclusive education remain questionable. There has been a growing realisation that the advent of democracy was not in itself a sufficient condition for the elimination of historical and structural inequalities in education with as recurring theme the dissonance between the government's socio-political imperative for change and economic realities. This article focuses on the development of policy and guidelines on inclusive education in dynamic interaction with the complexity of realities in South African schools with a special focus on the policy recommendations regarding the development of full-service schools. The constant comparative analysis of the two phased case study of a full-service school in a rural town revealed interesting results illustrating the complexities regarding the implementation of inclusive education and the challenges and opportunities in bridging the gap between the idealism of policies and the realities in schools.     

The lived experiences of orphaned learners in South Africa: implications for the provision of quality education

Learners living in impoverished communities and subjected to the kind of disadvantage in operation in their home environment are at risk of receiving education of an inferior quality. The situation is worse for orphans, especially those residing in poor communities in that they bring to school peculiar attributes which poses challenges for the South African government in its endeavour to provide quality education for all. This paper presents constructed narratives of four primary-school learners living in a poor community in South Africa. The narratives are presented from the perspectives of the learners themselves, teachers and caregivers. These narratives reveal that following the death of parents, orphaned learners experience emotional changes, increased responsibilities, safety concerns as well as absence of learning support in the case of sibling-headed households. We argue that the challenges they experience in their home environment impact negatively on learning at school. We, therefore, propose that the extended family and the community serve as resources in providing needed support for promoting positive educational experiences to these learners.     

Clustering schools to improve teacher professional development: Lessons learnt from a Zimbabwean case study

Abstract

Much still needs to be done to transform schooling in South Africa and provide education of equal quality to all learners. The notion of encouraging close collaboration between schools is widely accepted as a possible strategy to improve the quality of schooling in a particular geographical area. In this article, we discuss research conducted on the implementation of the Better Schools Programme cluster in Zimbabwe (BSPZ), a system of inter-school collaboration aiming at improving the quality of teaching and learning at the member schools. One of the primary objectives was to enhance teachers’ professional development by means of the establishment of professional infrastructure. Despite the shortcomings highlighted, our exploratory study brought to the fore potential advantages of school clusters as a type of formalised school collaboration which can indeed promote quality and equality in the South African schooling system.     

Language policies and practices in Tanzania and South Africa: problems and challenges

The authors of the present article are engaged in a research project funded by the Norwegian Research Council. In this project the language policies of Tanzania and South Africa, as well as the practices of these policies in the classroom are analyzed. The article gives some preliminary results from the project. While the language policies of Tanzania are described as confusing, contradictory, and ambiguous, the language policies of South Africa seem clearer and more progressive. In Tanzania, Kiswahili is seen as the national language, while both Kiswahili and English are official languages. The issue of language has, however, disappeared from the constitution in Tanzania. In the constitution of South Africa, 11 languages are official and seen as equal. But when it comes to practice in the classroom in both countries, the majority of the learners struggle to learn academic content because of the foreign medium that is used as the language of instruction from secondary school onwards in Tanzania and already from the fourth grade in primary school in South Africa. The research reported here shows that whatever the official policies may be the teachers in the classrooms will use whatever language they and their students feel most comfortable with. Examples are given here of the coping strategies teachers and learners use in both countries like translations, code-mixing and code-switching. At the end of the day the learners have to write their exams in English however. The language in education policy in most African countries lead many African pupils to fall even further behind. What seems to be a learning problem or a matter of bad grade, drop out and repetition is really a language problem.     

Sexuality education in South Africa: Three essential questions

Sex education is the cornerstone on which most HIV/AIDS prevention programmes rest and since the adoption of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE), has become a compulsory part of the South African school curriculum through the Life Orientation learning area. However, while much focus has been on providing young people with accurate and frank information about safe sex, this paper questions whether school-based programmes sufficiently support the needs of young people. This paper is based on a desk-review of the literature on sex and sexuality education and examines it in relation to the South African educational context and policies. It poses three questions: (a) what do youth need from sexuality education? (b) Is school an appropriate environment for sex education? (c) If so, what can be said about the content of sex education as well as pedagogy surrounding it? Through reviewing the literature this paper critically engages with education on sex and sexuality in South Africa and will argue that in order to effectively meet the needs of youth, the content of sexual health programmes needs to span the whole spectrum of discourses, from disease to desire. Within this spectrum, youth should be constructed as “knowers” as opposed to innocent in relation to sex. How youth are taught as well as how their own knowledge and experience is positioned in the classroom is as important as content in ensuring that youth avoid negative sexual health outcomes.     

Portraits of Black schooling in South Africa

This research captures the personal experiences of Black student teachers at the University of Durban-Westville, South Africa, who were asked to write about one significant experience in their schooling careers. About 1,000 such individual stories, collected between 1991 and 1996, were analyzed and recast as broader portraits of Black schooling in South Africa before and after the transition to democracy in 1994. Five major themes were identified in these stories: (1) violence at school, (2) authoritarian climate at school, (3) learning as memorizing, (4) difficulties in schooling related to poverty, and (5) difficulties in schooling related to the language medium. The methodological strategy was influenced by the Dutch school of phenomenological pedagogy that takes the ordinary life-world as a starting point for inquiry. The findings of this research suggest that new education policies, to be effective, must take account of very significant continuities in students' experiences through the political transition.