Is our curriculum working?

It is vital that all our children receive the best education possible, today. But is it happening?

South Africa’s future will be determined by the education of its children. It is therefore vital that all our children receive the best education possible, today. But is it happening?

Two senior educationists were invited on 6 June 2008 to share candidly what they felt was the state of education in South Africa and, if wanting, where solutions lay. The seminar was held at the head office of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED). The forum was conceived and chaired by the Chief Director of Curriculum Development, Dr Sigamoney Naicker. The two lead educationists were Brian Schreuder, Deputy Director-General (DDG) of the WCED, and Professor Jonathan Jansen, former dean of the Faculty of Education at the Univesity of Pretoria, Fulbright Scholar 2007 and currently Visiting Fellow at the National Research Foundation.

Note: This report is based on notes taken during the forum and attempts to capture some of the insights and urgency of the speakers as accurately as possible, given the medium. It does not offer a synopsis.

Dr Sigamoney Naicker, chief director Curriculum Development, chaired  the meeting	Brian Schreuder, deputy director general  spoke first	Prof. Jonathan Jansen, is former dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria, Fulbright Scholar 2007 and currently Visiting Fellow at the National Research Foundation.

Naicker: The reason for these seminars is to stimulate debate around critical issues. Today we look at the changing face of the curriculum and how public servants respond to this. Firstly, Mr Brian Schreuder will put his position, after which Professor Jonathan Jansen will be asked to respond.

We need a uniform approach to the curriculum but have we succeeded in getting one voice out in the field, and alignment from national to the ground? We haven’t... Schreuder 

Schreuder: Because of professional pragmatism, the Curriculum and Advisory Services have found themselves in a difficult position, being appointed into the position where they have to become bureaucrats. We need a uniform approach to the curriculum but have we succeeded in getting one voice out in the field, and alignment from national to the ground? We haven’t. Is the curriculum policy and mandate the same as in the days of Curriculum 2005 (Curriculum 2005 was the name given to the South African outcomes-based curriculum introduced when the first democratically elected government took over in 1994)? For advisers, I know that it is not so. This strange creature called OBE (Outcomes-based Education) and its political imperatives have lead to nuanced changes over the past number of years that have not always been acknowledged nor implemented consistently. So the next decade is even more critical than the past. We have to do what we’ve done in the last ten years, but better.

What should be the outcomes of our current curriculum? How does an adviser manage diversity and expectations?

The WCED’s (school-leaving) pass rate is 80% - it’s actually 40% considering we lose half our learners before matric (matric: matriculation school-leaving examination, also known as the Senior Certificate). It’s the best in the country. However, when we analyse the pass rate we still see disparity between the learners from poor areas and those from affluent areas. Are we doing enough to accelerate convergence?

At the end of primary school we have a 50% (85%?) achievement level, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of our pupils are unable to engage adequately when it comes to reading with comprehension, writing or doing sums; yet we have a 90 – 95% progression from year to year. Clearly there’s no alignment between performance and progression.

Why in 14 or 15 years have we not managed to improve the quality of education in our ex-DET schools (DET: Department of Education and Training, i.e. black)? The schools falling in the bottom 60% of the Senior Certificate are ex-DET. Why? The range of reasons is vast. One of the oft-cited reasons is that there is no support from parents. For instance, compare my child who does 2 hours’ worth of homework every day with a poor child who does no homework because he shares space in a Wendy house with another family. At the end of the first week, my child has done ten extra hours’ worth of work and 4 000 hours over the 10 years more than the child in the poor community. Furthermore, pupils in poor communities are often disadvantaged by ill-prepared teachers arriving late. So, in effect, these children from poor communities are doubly disadvantaged in that they only get 2/3 of the teaching time, which is often also of inferior quality. So at the end of the school process, who’ll get the job?

Yes, we have done a lot in this province, but apart from Focus schools and the Dinaledi project we have not managed to raise the quality in our poorest schools.

In an ex-Model C School (Model C: white) the child is usually able to engage with the text. Not so for the pupil in the ex-DET school. So many of our schools are not delivering.

Is it fair to expect curriculum advisers to do more? We demand curriculum compliance, but do we check on the quality of teaching?

The intended curriculum of a poorer child is even further removed from the actual curriculum.

Do we have curriculum advisers who can show teachers how to teach maths and the other subjects better?

The intended curriculum of a poorer child is even further removed from the actual curriculum... Schreuder

We have excellent curriculum advisers and less good curriculum advisers. Many teachers say the adviser can not help them to teach better and that all the advisers are able to do is check how many teaching tasks have been done. Not many of the advisers have actually taught in an OBE school. It has therefore always been my contention that curriculum advisers should spend a year or six months back in schools actually teaching.

OBE? Has anyone noticed that Education Minister Naledi Pandor doesn’t use that phrase any more? Many of our advisers are still going with the original OB design and are intimately involved in that curriculum. Remember the original design was strengthened because content was structured.

We have allowed a number of misconceptions: kids shouldn’t learn tables, no rote work, etc. SADTU (South African Democratic Teachers Union) said textbooks are out; they’re only there to benefit fat cats. So OBE has become filling in task sheets. I have a problem with task sheets because pupils cannot string together more than 10 sentences with meaning. They also don’t gain an understanding of the whole. So the curriculum is not effective after 10 years.

The curriculum has moved from Minister Bengu to Minister Kader Asmal’s time. Revised assessment guidelines are making assessment less rigorous. Lots of money has been spent, but I doubt that the transformation has taken place. Have we managed to get our curriculum advisers to change with that changing face as we rolled out the RNCS (Revised National Curriculum Statement)? Do we understand what is required from a curriculum that has moved from outcomes-based to a curriculum that focuses more on content, and a methodology that requires progression and structure? Do we, as curriculum advisers, understand the very significant shifts ourselves?

Teachers are complaining they’re getting confusing messages; so aren’t we adding to their confusion? What is the new role of the curriculum planner and curriculum adviser without the politicians spelling it out to the public?

Now the time is right. We must state exactly what the requirements of the curriculum are and shift the curriculum advisers to doing what they should be doing, rather than being mere checkers. They must do; not just talk the talk. Advisers must operate in an aligned way. They must be wise and mature enough to use good teachers. They must become less technicist. They must give teachers knowledge so that the teachers gain confidence.

The education system is in serious crisis. We now have a legacy that has disadvantaged schools. This mistake will cost us over generations... Jansen

Jansen: I have just visited several hundred schools forgotten by the government. It doesn’t matter talking of matric results when 2/3 of the schools are not working. The education system is in serious crisis. We now have a legacy that has disadvantaged schools. This mistake (Curriculum 2005) will cost us over generations.

We are working with a concept of curriculum that is symbolic. What do I mean by ‘symbolic’? Curriculum 2005 was a symbolic political act. That’s what governments the world over do. For instance, Zimbabwe has a submarine because it signals modernity. Mugabe is ‘dom astrant’ (stupidly impudent) because he must be seen attending the UN Food Conference in Rome.

I have been told I was right (to criticise Curriculum 2005 at its inception). I don’t want to be told I was right. I want to be told how we are going to deal with it.

Think about curriculum as the things that actually happen in the classroom: curriculum policy versus curriculum practice. Get away from seeking fidelity. Work with ‘backward mapping” and see if the policy makes sense.

Brian (Schreuder) talks about the nuanced slippages from Bengu, Asmal to Pandor. Now Minister Pandor is getting away with talk about the foundations of learning. That timidity isn’t going to deal with the fundamental reality that the curriculum isn’t working.

Thobs Gamede visited two high schools in Gauteng, one of which was in Soweto township, to do research into how the Soweto Uprising and Sharpeville were handled in each school and reports that he/she might have been in two different countries. Teachers interpret curriculum: they don’t teach curriculum.

How dare we shift the power from teachers to curriculum advisers? It’s not what curriculum advisers do. What matters is what teachers do. Curriculum advisers don’t have a privileged position; their success is what teachers do.

We have moved out of the age of innocence. There was no miracle: This is an ordinary country, if you’re not convinced by the terrible evidence of unresolved anger, trauma and bitterness among South Africans, white and black. There was no miracle in the education reform arena... Jansen

We have moved out of the age of innocence. There was no miracle: This is an ordinary country, if you’re not convinced by the terrible evidence of unresolved anger, trauma and bitterness among South Africans, white and black. There was no miracle in the education reform arena.

Why?

The first reason is the “juniorisation” of the civil service: Despite all our business of politicking there is no evidence that learning has improved. The evidence is actually of regression. So stop all the testing, as all it is confirming is that we’re not only stuck, but we’re going backwards. Keep the kids at home, my daughter argues. The heart of the crisis is a narrow view of curriculum. Vincent Mapai in relation to the government as a whole speaks of the juniorisation of the civil service. Just because they were activists, ANC aligned; junior people were taken into leadership positions in the civil service. Now they are under threat and so pretend they’re on top of things by trying to show that you’re an idiot.

The second reason is that the curriculum is too complex and has been poorly communicated. Take SAQA (South African Qualification Authority), which has as its founding mission: equity and access but uses OBE language that has became so difficult to access that teachers are alienated. And all those acronyms! I visited a school and was announced as the ISDO: that’s an inspector. We are messing up with curriculum because of language. We took a simple thing and mystified it. And then we stand back and say the teachers don’t get it. Why teachers don’t get it is because they’re human and cannot understand stuff that is so complex and poorly communicated. Maybe we’re not angry enough.

The third reason is the unionisation of education. Naptosa (National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa) and the SAOU (Suid-Afrikaanse Onderwysersunie) are too small to matter. However, SADTU (South African Democratic Teachers Union, with by far the largest membership) deals only with labour relations, salaries and conditions of services. In the state of New York, the unions concern themselves with teaching.

What is the connection between the curriculum and learning outcomes?

Firstly, the teacher must be present. I have a 10-point plan to change schools. Do you know my most radical principle? Teachers must teach every day. I asked teachers how many teaching days they have in a year and they didn’t know. I told them if you don’t know how many calendar days in your teaching year how do you plan?

The second connection has to do with teacher knowledge. Do you need another study to tell you that the teachers are failing our kids because they don’t know enough maths; that they don’t know enough subject matter? Stop fooling yourselves. The teacher isn’t present in the classroom and doesn’t know enough so how can teaching happen? Test every teacher with a matric question paper. Schools must want to change. Stop wasting time.

The third link is an environment that signals to pupils that they are being supported. Management’s achievement is only as good as the performance of the weakest school in your province - otherwise how do you live with yourself? Personally I no longer look for academic achievement. What is important to me is meaning. The South African Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for girls takes kids in Grade 7 from poor, dangerous and traumatised communities and provides them with a huge support team. I took ten of them and interviewed them, then went to their schools to talk to girls their age and found that after one year instead of being withdrawn, reticent, confused and displaced, the girls in the Academy were ambitious, energetic, ecstatic. Why? Because when they walk through the gate someone tells them they’re good.

Naicker: I saw a twenty five-year-old Zimbabwe woman who crossed the border. I asked her how do you feel? She sounded enthusiastic. Her husband was working as a labourer and she was happy. We have so much work; where do we concentrate our efforts? Where is the focus? Where is the budget and what do we achieve at the end of the year? I now invite questions.

Lodi van Deventer, curriculum planner: Economics and Business Economics, FET (Further Education and Training): One of the schools last year in George increased their achievement from 20% to 100% How did they manage that? Their conclusion: we all decided to get the teachers and the learners in the classroom at the same time.

Genevieve Koopman, director: Curriculum, GET (General Education and Training): I think the hardest part for me to understand is why we are allowing the unions to prevent us from going into the classroom. Lumping support under IQMS (Integrated Quality Management System for School-based Educators) is limiting. We now find non-officials giving curriculum advice.

Jansen: It’s a huge problem but not insurmountable. I’ve seen a district in Soweto where the head says “I respect the union but we have the right to decide for ourselves”; not without consequences (for your career, though). I think we must not pretend we are politically without authority. You are appointed to assist teachers. It’s going to take courage to stand up to the bully. I chased officials away during the Apartheid era, but that was a political issue. It was principled. This won’t be resolved politically. I have seen children who have dead parents, no money and who don’t care. It is morally unacceptable to be denied access to schools. I would therefore put this to the unions: don’t put your kids in a non-township school and then disrupt the township school.

Schreuder: Curriculum advisers are going into classrooms and schools have been finding their presence worthwhile. I therefore play principals up against one another. I agree with Jonathan that we must not back down, be too shy or lack the confidence to go in. But what if the teachers show up our advisers? The whole effort would be better served if there were a political will.

We have lost that old quality of ‘meesterskap’ (mastership) there once was in rural schools... Wilson

Dr Brian Wilson, chief curriculum adviser, Breede River EMDC (Education Management Development Centre): District officials need to have the balls and deal with the kids not currently attending school. The kids in ex-Model C schools have passionate teachers while teachers in ex-non Model C schools complain: ‘Ons kinders is nie goed genoeg om dit te doen nie’ (Our kids are not good enough to do this). We have lost that old quality of ‘meesterskap’ (mastership) there once was in rural schools. We need to set ourselves outcomes that must state quite clearly that at the end of our lesson the kids should be able to do this; not ‘complexify’ the system. I admit we’re spreading different messages in our district.

Jansen: You’re right that the issue is expectations; Brian (Wilson) will know I was always last in class (immediately denied by Brian) which is why I say to my own son: ‘Son, I want you to know you will be the next president of South Africa.” I know it’s not possible but I nevertheless have high expectations. If the kids sense I don’t have high expectations, they don’t try. Therefore, at the end of Grade Three I must expect that this kid will write, read and compute. If that’s what you mean by outcomes, then I’m happy.

I saw film footage of Matthew Goniwe School. They have more chemicals in their laboratory and science equipment than I have ever seen in one place, but not a single thing in that school is used. It’s therefore not resources that teachers need. Maybe we need to drop the notion of curriculum advisers and instead start calling ourselves teaching advisers.

Andrew Isaac, curriculum planner for Geography, FET: I agree about the background knowledge of educators. We noted how in certain Senior Certificate questions the performance of candidates was below standard, for example, in map work. So we conducted workshops in map work and the next year their performance improved slightly. Another problem, the BA (Bachelor of Arts) students doing Geography focus on the social side of Geography, while the students with a Science background focus on the physical part. So results are determined by each teacher’s training. How are we going to rectify this problem which emanates from university because of the split between the social and scientific?

Jansen: I would rather that the teacher’s first degree is in a discipline rather than an education degree. I commend you for identifying the gap and then implementing the training.

Schreuder: I agree with Jonathan that we’re in that street. I have a problem with members of a profession paid to do a job but unable to use their brains to develop themselves. I would like us to give teachers three years to find their feet and thereafter decrease their salaries if they don’t improve themselves. It’s about time that teachers understand they can attend to their own needs.

Lucia Bredenkamp, project manager LTSM (Learning and Teaching Study Material): Teachers interpret - they don’t teach the curriculum. Teachers just want to be allowed to teach our children; instead they feel boxed in. We must have higher expectation of teachers.
Jansen: We need a balance between accountability and support. We don’t get it right because teachers aren’t accountable. We need to say to teachers: “You know how to get things right, so do it.” There’s no need to be complex.

Schreuder: We found in the Litnum (Literacy and Numeracy) strategy that when teachers are honest about what they’re doing in their classes they admit that they’re teaching to the lowest level and the top half of our class doesn’t get stretched. So by focusing on the kids in the top half we might get improvements.

Jansen: Get instructional leadership right - not just filling in forms, and get the climate of the school right. When a kid walks into a school and senses order and predictability, that kid’s interpretation is “they care about me”.

Wilson: We become defensive of our curriculum; I believe we have something in place and we can strengthen it. I have an emotional connection to the future of our country. We play the blame game but we have control of 90% of our world. We must make a difference. It’s also about having role models in our schools; we must therefore stop drawing kids from the community to magnet schools.

(The scribe had to slip out of the meeting for a short while so certain comments during his absence have not been included.)

John Goliath (assessment adviser): Am I moving with the stream or being true to myself? I cannot keep replacing things. I need not always to be an authority. I needn’t be a know-it-all, but can say: together we can discover reality.

Tina Singh, chief director: Assessment: We want to leave something positive or constructive. I must acknowledge that I cannot change things overnight - that it’s a process. I need to show teachers how to do things better.

...we in the public service are in a most powerful position to make things happen. We don’t have choices: we must turn our schools around... Naicker

Naicker: I wish to provide our two speakers each with an opportunity to make a concluding statement.

Jansen: As a province as a whole you do much better. People are passionate, knowledgeable - so don’t be too hard on yourself. Three things

1. As the most divided province, try to change the language with which you talk about schools. Stop talking of ex DET schools and talk rather of our schools.
2. In a constructive way, make learning your bottom line. It doesn’t matter if they sort out the assessment criteria.
3. I will re-examine myself when I get home: what am I really doing; am I making a difference? If we could all do that we would have made a whole lot of progress today.

Schreuder: There is huge diversity in our province, but we are well placed to make a difference. But we could have made a helluva greater difference had we a stronger backbone. I have high expectations of curriculum advisers. In the next phase we must appoint the right people. We don’t have the luxury of appointing people to learn to do the job. We’re well positioned to add value: quality learning and teaching; we can get ourselves a more uniform advisory and support service. In closing: it’s noteworthy that when we can speak our minds, we come closer to one another.

Naicker: I thought about Mugabe and the 80s and 90s and this lady running across the border, finding herself in Joburg and then ending up in Kayalitshe in a shack, and then the violence; and I thought about this country and this area in our country right now and realised that we in the public service are in a most powerful position to make things happen. We don’t have choices: we must turn our schools around.

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• Sigamoney Naicker - smnaicker@pgwc.gov.za

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