Nelson Mandela said: “Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world”. On Madiba’s birthday (18 July) one wonders what he would have said about the state of our education and the impact it will have on the future of our children.
According to the Constitution, a new South Africa was born with the aim of healing the divisions of the past and to create a society based on democratic values to give all citizens of our country a better life. One of the things required to achieve this was a school curriculum that could unlock the potential of every citizen so that everyone could make a contribution to the country. The Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) thus came into being in January 2012.
Principles
Most educators agree that the curriculum is a process that systematically guides the aims, content, learning activities and assessment procedures of the learning process to lead the child to adulthood.
Franklin Bobbitt already in 1918 spoke of a course of experiences which includes academics, culture and sport. For William Pinar (2019), the curriculum is a strategy for self-development so that one can react suitably to the challenges in one’s life.
With the principles of the CAPS I can find no fault. The purpose is to address the inequalities of the past through social transformation, human rights, knowledge and skills, progress, acknowledging our heritage, inclusivity and diversity as well as an environmentally friendly society.
The education environment
Unfortunately, the inequalities in education were never really addressed to achieve these noble goals. This is evident from our overcrowded schools and the shortage of resources required for a modern education system.
Rightly one can ask how successful the CAPS has been over the past 10 years. Has it equipped learners with the skills and knowledge required for the 21st century? Has the quality of life of most learners improved? Do all learners have equal access to the country’s resources? Just think of the learners who could not get access to online tuition during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Amnesty International’s report, Broken and Unequal: The State of Education in South Africa, confirms that our education is still very unequal and divided. In 75% of schools the quality of tuition does not prepare our children for the 21st century. This is in spite of the fact that education receives the greatest part of our budget. Poorer countries achieve more success with less funding.
Ticking time bomb
It is clear that learners require more support to bridge the gap between school and the grown-up world. For 12 years children struggle to finish their school career, then simply fall into the economic abyss and become part of the growing youth unemployment statistics, a direct result of an education system which has failed our young people. After 28 years of democracy another lost generation awaits us. This is a ticking time bomb.
This time bomb exploded exactly a year ago when thousands of people, some of them of schoolgoing age, looted KwaZulu-Natal. If you cannot get work with a matric certificate to care for your family, and you have nothing to lose, plundering is a given.
This is in sharp contrast to Pinar’s theory that the curriculum leads to positive action. Besides the education problems we also have a morality problem. We fail to cultivate a value system, as displayed with the looting. The disturbing message to the government is that young people no longer see matric and education as a solution, but will rather resort to theft and looting.
It is a case of survival triumphing over reason.
What does this say about the CAPS?
Research shows that the CAPS is too content-intensive. This leads to many problems. Because the curriculum is overloaded, there is no time for consolidation, which leads to lack of comprehension. Under pressure from the education authorities, teachers steam ahead without the children mastering the content. A big problem is textbooks which are written from a middle-class perspective and exclude township children.
The most important criticism of the CAPS is that it is prescriptive and deprives teachers of their professional initiative. Sometimes you want to go back and explain again. This kills teachers’ passion for education. Valuable tuition time is lost owing to frequent assessments. One rushes from one test to the other. It is generally known that middle-class mothers do their children’s assignments for them. The general feeling is that the CAPS can only succeed with trained teachers in affluent schools with a well-equipped library. However, with 1,800 schools lacking a library, the CAPS cannot be successful in poor schools.
Changes in the workplace
The World Economic Forum has predicted a full-scale revolution in the workplace in the next two decades. It will have a big impact on the curriculum. Four changes are foreseen:
- There will not be a shortage of work, but people will have to be retrained for new job opportunities;
- Working from home will be the norm and people will be able to work from any place in the world and not just from nine to five;
- The greatest part of all work by 2027 will be freelance; and
- Technology will continue taking over the world.
Furthermore, facts and examinations will be less important. Instead of students working through the night to memorise facts, they will have to think for themselves. The practice that some matriculants do “revision” for six months to prepare for the matric exam is out of date, boring and a waste of valuable tuition time.
New curriculum
School subjects will no longer have to provide for secretaries, human resources officials, bank tellers, supermarket cashiers and sales staff. People will increasingly do banking on their smartphones and order their groceries online, while robots will increasingly replace factory workers.
But a new curriculum will be required for job opportunities that will be in demand in future: nurses and medical doctors, alternative energy installers (solar and wind power), software analysts, data analysts, agriculturalists (for food security) and foundation-phase teachers (children must still learn to read and write).
Every subject in the new curriculum will be based on five basic principles:
- Emotional intelligence (to work from home requires self-discipline);
- Critical thinking (there is still too much coaching in school and too little critical thinking);
- Problem-solving (to solve your own problems is part of becoming an adult);
- Entrepreneurship (learners must learn to create work instead of searching for work); and
- Leadership (the role of effective leaders in education with vision and drive is indispensable).
However, before we can think of a new curriculum, we must assess the teaching environment. We will have to think anew about education if we want to overcome economic challenges such as rolling blackouts, corruption, poverty, the inability to fight violence and crime and a lack of service provision by municipalities.
If we know what our challenges are, we can also ascertain which subjects are required to address the matter. In my view, South Africa has seven huge challenges which can be corrected with the right curriculum: rolling blackouts (renewable energy), corruption, safety and security (moral values), racism (our heritage), unemployment (entrepreneurship), climate change (environmental studies), food security (agriculture) and housing and transport (engineering).
Bridge to a new curriculum
I recently visited a factory in Ashton which was in line to be closed down. On my way there I had to cross the new ultramodern bridge. Consisting of 8,000 tons of steel and concrete, it was erected next to the road and thereafter, with the aid of technology, was moved to its correct position within just six hours. In this way, safe and effective access to this picturesque Boland town was effected over the Kogmanskloof River.
This shows that, if we know what the problem is, appropriate steps can be taken to solve it. If the right people with the right skills are appointed, success is guaranteed.
It is the same with education and our school curriculum. Now wouldn’t that be a valuable birthday gift for Madiba? DM
This is an abbreviated version of Professor Michael le Cordeur’s recent Stellenbosch Forum lecture: “Bridging the gap from an unequal past to a future of equal opportunities: in search of an effective curriculum for South Africa.”
Become an Insider
The trouble with academics is that they generally have big ideas on theory but very little sense of application. One can easily make out great sounding arguments on paper and in coffee bars. But what makes an economy tick? What is it that turned Europe from a war-torn mess in the late 1940’s to one of the most prosperous economic zones by the 1990’s? Why did the USA outperform every other economy in the last 100 years? How come are the Asian tigers doing so well? What is behind Singapore’s success? How does Japan, without any natural resources, hang on to its position as a super producer? How come is Africa, as a continent, the richest in terms of resources and potential, still in the economic doldrums? This isn’t because of deficient school curricula as this article makes us believe – it is because of a stultifying obsession with central planning, “new deal” five year plans, ancient communist philosophies applied in new-look guises, all combined with an odious pervasive miasma of incompetence and lack of productivity.