Abstract:

Since the dawn of democracy, wholesale changes swept the entire South African society, with education being no exception. Teachers are faced with the challenge of a radical paradigm shift, from the traditional teacher-centred to learner-centred didactical approaches as entrenched in the New Curriculum Statement (NCS). The Outcomes Based education (OBE) philosophy, which is at the centre of this new South African curriculum, aimed at radical societal transformation with new ethos and values, was met with a mixture of reactions from teachers. Teachers ‘as agents of change’ are now required to develop a new caliber of citizens and leaders, which requires them to apply new teaching and learning strategies to achieve this end. This paper therefore, intends to reflects not only on perceptions expressed by teachers on these developments, but also recommend strategies that can aid and empower teachers to embrace these inevitable educational changes affecting their day to day job.

Background

The first democratic elections for all South Africans, regardless of colour or creed, were held in 1994 and ended 40 years of entrenched racial discrimination, termed the policy of Apartheid. The period since then has been the first time that South African teachers could seriously begin to educate a new generation of post-apartheid learners. As a teacher by profession myself, I have been deeply involved for over ten years in the conceptualizing, organizing and teaching in the Further Education and Training (FET) teacher education programme at the Central University of Technology, Free State, a university in Bloemfontein, in the Free State Province of South Africa.

Since 1994, South African education fraternity, has seen quite a lot of remarkable changes. For both the intentions, approaches and methodologies, of all these changes, the advent of ‘Outcomes-based education and training’ stands out, and it has not only become the fundamental approach to transmitting educational deliverables, but is also the entrenched local education philosophy and critical methodology too. The number of challenges and demands made on teachers and the teacher training institutions such as the value of cooperative learning, research based, resource based teaching, problem-solving approaches, and customizing methods of teaching.

The challenges of implementing such didactical approaches and strategies, include increased demand for supplies, equipments, technical assistance and continuing teacher development and training. The emphasis and focus of this article however, is on ‘OBE’ and its entrenched didactical principles. Teachers as agents of change and transmitters of these deliverables, more often than not, are faced with the difficulties of not only unpacking this new curriculum and its OBE philosophy, but also to ensure its successful implementation.

Keywords:

Teachers, didactical approaches, New Curriculum Statement.