Abstract:

The South African school curriculum has undergone multiple changes due to constant political changes. Each political party that comes into power imposes its own regulations and changes in the curriculum to close gaps and improve the country's education system. In 1994, the new president in South Africa introduced the Outcome Based Education (OBE) curriculum which, at a later, was criticized for having outdated information and racist language. 1997 Curriculum 2005 was introduced by the new National Department of Education. In 2000, Curriculum 2005 was changed to Revised National Curriculum Statement which began to operate in 2002 because it was criticized by the teachers in the GET phase. Later in 2008, the Revised National Curriculum Statement was implemented for Grade. Due to consistency problems, the Minister of Basic Education appointed a task team in 2009 to evaluate the challenges of the Revised National Curriculum Statement. In response to the challenges, she introduced a new curriculum called Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) to provide quality teaching and learning. CAPS is the current operating curriculum policy in South Africa. These changes constantly impact teachers’ experience of teaching as they are mandatory to adapt and implement them into their curriculum delivery. Therefore, this research intends to investigate the influence of curriculum changes on teachers’ experiences of teaching in secondary schools.

This research was underpinned by Rogan and Grayson’s (2003) theoretical framework, which focuses on curriculum implementation in South African schools. This theory is constructed on three constructs for curriculum implementation in school: profile of implementation, Capacity to support innovation, and support from outside agencies. Interpretive paradigm and qualitative approach were adopted to gain in-depth information about the research phenomenon. In the interpretivist paradigm, how people respond to a given situation depends on their past experiences and circumstances therefore teachers’ experience in Accounting will come from the past experiences they had with the curriculum changes. Furthermore, a case study research design was employed. Eight Accounting teachers from ten different schools were purposively sampled in the KwaZulu-Natal province for a focus group discussion. Four teachers participated in semi-structured interviews. Data collected were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that curriculum changes have both pros and cons on teachers’ experiences of teaching. Findings indicated that teachers became less competent in the expertise of the content as they keep adapting to changes, changes create confusion as teachers have to change their teaching style and add administrative burden in adjusting to these changes. Nevertheless, updating some aspects of the curriculum such as the content and assessment was perceived as a positive influence on teachers’ experience of teaching. It can be concluded that curriculum changes are investable, however, they have a vast influence on teachers’ teaching experience. This research recommends curriculum designers involve teachers in designing a curriculum so that they will consider what teachers experience in classroom during the teaching and learning. Additionally, massive support intending to train teachers on curriculum changes must be provided in schools.

Keywords:

Curriculum changes, teaching experience, Accounting, curriculum implementation, teaching strategies.