STATEMENT BY MINISTER OF BASIC EDUCATION, ANGIE MOTSHEKGA, ON CURRICULUM REVIEW PROCESS, NATIONAL ASSEMBLY NOVEMBER 5 2009
The MINISTER OF BASIC EDUCATION: Hon Speaker, Members of Parliament ladies and gentlemen, for some time now I have been aware of the wide-ranging comments on the implementation of the National Curriculum Statement. While there has been positive support for the new curriculum, there has also been considerable criticism. This has included criticism of teacher overload, confusion and stress. Most worryingly, there is consistent evidence of widespread learner underperformance in both international and local assessments.
When I assumed office as Minister of Basic Education, my predecessor Minister Naledi Pandor, had already initiated a process to review the implementation of the curriculum.
I accordingly appointed a panel of experts in July 2009 to investigate the nature of the challenges and problems experienced in the implementation of the National Curriculum Statement. This decision to review was based on our commitment to improving the quality of teaching and learning in our schools in both the short and long term.
The team was tasked to develop a set of recommendations designed to improve implementation. I asked the team to focus specifically on curriculum policy and guideline documents, the transition between grades and phases, and assessment - particularly continuous assessment. During the hearings they decided to include a consideration of learning and teaching-support materials and teacher support and training. A report has now been presented to me, which I have accepted, and I have started a process of implementing its recommendations.
The question on everyone's lips is why we do not, as Mamphela Ramphele always wants us to do, declare the death certificate of outcomes-based education, OBE? I must say that we have, to all intents and purposes, done so. So if anybody asks us if we are going to continue with OBE, we say that there is no longer OBE. We have completely done away with it. [Applause.]
I do not wish to be drawn into simplistic ideological debates on this issue and forced into a disavowal of our goals. The question is how we can disentangle our goals from the outcomes in which they are expressed, and the very concept of outcomes.
It is instructive to remember that the introduction of both Curriculum 2005 and the National Curriculum Statement were highly contested. These involved professional, business and religious constituencies. We should be steadfast and not let them determine what is good for education now. In order for there to be learning outcomes and educational experiences of the majority to improve, we need to focus attention on dedicated, inspired teaching based on a curriculum that is teachable.
The review panel reviewed documents and conducted interviews and hearings with teachers from all nine provinces as well as with teacher unions. They received electronic and written submissions from the public. In the process of their consultations - that they undertook across the country - there was a remarkable consensus amongst teachers and unions about what the problems were. The team also reports that there was an overwhelming sense of the overall commitment of teachers across the country to try to improve learner performance.
The task team has recommended that the changes occur within a framework of a five-year plan from 2010 to 2014. This plan needs to be widely communicated. The plan will be shared with teachers before the end of the year. I will present the recommendations within the timeframes anticipated for implementation.
Some of the changes will take effect from January 2010. Some of the recommendations to be implemented from the beginning of 2010 should definitely bring immediate relief to teachers. Others will need more planning and consultation. The emphasis is on ensuring that there is more time for teaching and learning. Teachers will be relieved of administrative burdens that impact on teaching time. The system will provide systematic support to teachers to strengthen their teaching.
The measures to be implemented in January 2010 revolve around the relief of the administrative burden on teachers, increasing teacher support and improving literacy and numeracy. Allow me to provide some of the details. Some of the details will be on our website - and, again, we will communicate them through the media and also copies will be sent to all 28 000 schools in the country.
With regard to the relief of the administrative burden on teachers, we are going to ensure that learner portfolios as separate, formal compilations of assessment tasks are discontinued from January 2010. What the team found is that some of the assessment requirements that we had placed on learners did not add any value, but instead distracted both teachers and learners from the core function of the curriculum.
We are also going to make sure that the number of projects required as formal assessment tasks for each learning area is reduced to one project per subject. We are also going to make sure that promotion and progression requirements for Grades R to 12, as well as grading descriptors for all grades, are finalised. The balance between year marks and exams should be 50% for Grades 4 to 9, and 75% exam mark for Grades 10 to 12.
Because there was a very strange anomaly in our system in which the importance of textbooks in curriculum delivery was no longer appreciated. The department has noted teachers' concerns that the development of learning materials is best placed in the hands of experts, because it is only people who are experts in their fields of study that are best placed to develop textbooks and learning materials. In this review teachers said that the development of learning materials is not the core business of teachers. It also erodes their teaching time. Therefore, textbooks are going to be used as an effective tool to ensure consistency, coverage, appropriate pacing and better quality in terms of instruction and content.
There were also enormous planning requirements of teachers and these are going to be rationalised. The review also suggested that we must give more support to teachers, teachers being our tools of service, and, more than anything, being the key element in ensuring that we get quality education. Some teachers have voiced the concern that they have not had sufficient curriculum training. Targeted in-service training that will be subject specific and targeted only where needed will be provided for teachers from 2010. This in-service training will not, however, under any circumstances be allowed to disrupt teaching and learning. In-service training is built into the five-year plan for improving teaching and learning and the department's plan for continuing professional development training.
All principals, heads of departments, district and provincial support staff will be trained on the curriculum and content and assessment requirements. Again, this will be built into a five-year plan for improving teaching and learning.
The other matter that was raised through the review was the role of the subject advisers as school-based subject experts rather than as curriculum developers. This was because there was, again, an anomaly in which subject advisers themselves had started papering on top of the current curriculum. So what we are saying is that subject advisers will only focus their work on the delivery, implementation and moderation of the curriculum. They will offer learning area subjects and support teachers only.
The major issue that has been affecting us is about international testing of literacy and numeracy. We are going to be implementing the Foundations for Learning Programme from 2010. The programme establishes the non-negotiables of resources, teacher planning and effective teaching. The focus is on reading, writing and mental maths each day, and on regular, standardised assessments of learner performance. The Department of Basic Education has developed extensive learning and teaching packages for Grades R to 6 teachers to assist with planning, teaching and learning. These packs will be distributed to all primary schools at the start of the school year in 2010.
Moving beyond 2010 - from 2011 and beyond - the Department of Basic Education will begin to concretise the following recommendations for implementation by 2011 onwards. We will be looking at reducing the number of learning programmes. This is because, again in the study, the review committee raised concerns about the number of learning areas in the intermediate phase - that our children are expected to jump from four learning areas to about eight or nine learning areas. This is a huge jump and creates a major problem in terms of articulation. Therefore, moving forward from 2011, this will reduce the overload on learners and allow more time for language teaching and learning during the critical transition from Grades 3 to 4.
All learners from Grade 4 to 12 will receive their own textbooks for every learning area. The department will issue guidelines for textbooks and distribution, and the selection will be done nationally. There is a plethora of policies, guidelines and interpretations of policies and guidelines at all levels of the education system. Thus, the other matter that was raised by the curriculum review was that we have to streamline our policy, clarify it, and make sure that all of us have a common understanding and interpretation of what is required of our learners.
The department will develop a set of simple, coherent curriculum documents per subject per phase from Grades R to 12. This will simply describe the content, the concepts and the skills that are supposed to be taught. Anyone who has taught before will know what we are talking about: the syllabi, which spells out what your aims, your objectives, your learning areas, your methodology and your assessments are in very simple and clear terms.
By addressing the curriculum implementation challenges, the Ministry will create an enabling learning and teaching environment through which we can focus on laying the foundations of quality education for all.
In addition to these reforms being monitored by the Presidency, the department is developing its own monitoring tools through the establishment of the National Educational Evaluation Development Unit. Through this unit, the department will not only evaluate schools and teachers, but also evaluate the entire system. This will enable the department, on an ongoing basis, to identify challenges, and, working together with the affected stakeholders, to address them.
I am encouraged by the undeniable dedication of our educators to improving learner performance. I wish to reaffirm that teachers are key to the realisation of quality education. I want to wish all stakeholders well in our joint efforts to overcome the challenges, which we have all collectively identified.
For learning outcomes and educational experiences of the majority to improve, we need focused attention to dedicated, inspired teaching based on a curriculum that is teachable. To make sure that as we debate we have a common focus, we will focus on the curriculum as a starting point because the curriculum is the core or the main business of education. We are aware of all the other challenges we are going to face in the implementation of the curriculum that revolve around or start from your infrastructure, your scholar transport, your motivation, your dedication. We are saying we have to start with the main business of education which is the curriculum.
As we clear up the curriculum, we definitely have plans to ensure that we remove all other obstacles that are going to affect the curriculum. But my main focus is the major business of education, which is the curriculum. Therefore put on other measures to support the curriculum like teacher support, learner discipline, infrastructure and all other related matters. This is our starting point because the curriculum is the main thing in education. I thank you, Speaker. [Applause.]
Source: Hansard (unrevised), November 5 2009
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