South Africa Education Curriculum

A curriculum is a “plan or program of all experiences which the learner encounters under the direction of a school” (Tanner and Tanner, 1995: 158). According to Gatawa (1990: 8), it is “the totality of the experiences of children for which schools are responsible”. All this is in agreement with Sergiovanni and Starrat (1983), who argue that curriculum is “that which a student is supposed to encounter, study, practice and master what the student learns”. For others such as Beach and Reinhatz (1989: 97), a curriculum outlines a “prescribed series of courses to take”.

From the definitions above, it is possible to state that a curriculum has the following characteristics:

 It comprises the experiences of children for which the school is responsible.
 It has content.
 It is planned.
 It is a series of courses to be taken by students. In addition, a curriculum considers the learners and their interaction with each other, the teacher and the materials. The output and outcomes of a curriculum are evaluated.
Bringing all these points together, the curriculum is viewed as a composite whole including the learner, the teacher, teaching and learning methodologies, anticipated and unanticipated experiences, outputs and outcomes possible within a learning institution.

There are various factors that influence the design of curriculum this will enable me as an educator to understand how the content that I teach and the learning experiences to which the children are exposed have been selected. This will enable me to develop some insight into the methods that can be used to deliver this content. Therefore, my research will list some of the factors the influence the design of C2005 currently being used in South African schools.
 Influence of politics on curriculum
 Influence of society on curriculum
 Influence of economy on curriculum
 Influence of technology on curriculum
 Influence of environment on curriculum
 Influence of child psychology on curriculum.

From your experience as a student and teacher, you may have noticed how politics influence education. This is why education is regarded as a political activity. National ideology and philosophy have a tremendous influence on the education system because:
 Politics determine and define the goals, content, learning experiences and evaluation strategies in education.
 Curricular materials and their interpretation are usually heavily influenced by political considerations.
 Political considerations may play a part in the hiring of personnel.
 Funding of education is greatly influenced by politics.
 Entry into educational institutions and the examination systems are heavily influenced by politics.

C2005 and the Revised National Curriculum Statement were two steps in the process of curriculum revision undertaken since 1994. Curriculum revision was undertaken in three mains stages or waves: the first involved the ‘cleansing’ of the curriculum of its racist and sexist elements in the immediate aftermath of the election. The second involved the implementation of outcomes-based education through C2005. And the third involved the review and revision of C2005 in the light of recommendations made by a Ministerial Review Committee appointed in 2000 (Jansen, 1999; Cross, 2002; Chisholm, 2003). This Review Committee recommended a major revision of the curriculum in order to make it more understandable in the classroom. The Report of the Review Committee (2000) and the creation of the Revised National Curriculum Statement (2000 – 2002).

Curriculum 2005 is a form of outcomes-based education. Outcomes-based education has meant different things to different people in theory and in practice (Hargreaves and Moore, 2000; Harley et al, 2000). As the guiding philosophy of C2005 in 1997 it was, for its initiators, the pedagogical route out of apartheid education. In its emphasis on results and success, on outcomes and their possibility of achievement by all at different paces and times rather than on a subject-bound, content-laden curriculum, it constituted the decisive break with all that was limiting and stultifying and in the content and pedagogy of education. OBE and C2005 provided a broad framework for the development of an alternative to apartheid education that was open, non-prescriptive and reliant on teachers creating their own learning programmes and learning support materials (DOE, 1997a, b and n.d.)

The Report of the Ministerial Committee established to review the curriculum in 2000 gave a wide-ranging critique of the curriculum. It argued that while there was overwhelming support for the principles of outcomes-based education and Curriculum 2005, which had generated a new focus on teaching and learning, implementation, has been confounded by:
 a skewed curriculum structure and design
 lack of alignment between curriculum and assessment policy
 inadequate orientation, training and development of teachers
 learning support materials that are variable in quality, often unavailable and not sufficiently used in classrooms
 policy overload and limited transfer of learning into classrooms

When you examine the curriculum being offered in your country, one question you may need to deal with is the extent to which social factors or social considerations influenced the design of the curriculum. Society has its own expectations about the aims and objectives that should be considered when designing the curriculum. It also has a perception of what the product of the school system should look like. It is therefore necessary for curriculum designers to take into account these societal considerations. If this does not happen, the curriculum becomes irrelevant. As you know, a number of religions co-exist South Africa. Your own community may include Christians, Muslims, Hindus and adherents of other religions. Their views must be considered when designing a curriculum. In Certain countries, for example, subjects such as sex education and political economy have proved difficult to include in the curriculum because of the resistance from some religious groups. These groups feel that including these subjects in the curriculum will undermine their belief systems. The same groups of people would not tolerate a curriculum that does not include religious and moral education.
The design of curricular materials and their presentation should accommodate the culture of the society that the curriculum is seeking to serve. You should, however, be sensitive to the fact that the curriculum can be used to perpetuate inequities. You may have a curriculum that is gender biased against female children because it includes instructional materials that portray negative attitudes towards women and girls. It is therefore possible for culture to have both positive and negative influences on the curriculum.

One of the reasons why education is financed by governments is to improve the country’s economy. Therefore, the national curriculum should concern itself with the requirements of the economy.