Abstract
D.Phil.
With the demise of apartheid and the ushering in of a new political dispensation, many
changes have taken place in South Africa. The field of education, which was one of
the most volatile areas of concern for the apartheid regime and has been described by
some academics at the University of Natal as being a miasmic morass marked by
systemic crisis, has been quick to purge itself of some of its apartheid legacies.
For instance, to offset the harmful effects of the 'Bantu Education Act', a new school
curriculum - Curriculum 2005- has been introduced. It is hoped by the education
authorities that Curriculum 2005, which has its roots in Outcomes-based Education
(OBE) and an accompanying pedago91 based on a constructivist methodology, will
help considerably in preparing students adequately for the challenges of adulthood.
This is something that has hitherto been denied them by the obnoxious 'Bantu
Education Act'.
This study is undertaken on the premise that without being able to crawl, a child
cannot walk, let alone run. Against this background, teachers should first of all
undergo an intensive re-training programme to bring their knowledge and competency
levels to acceptable standards. It is only after this, that they can be eased into the
otherwise complex, contradictory and sometimes unintelligible concepts being branded
as OBE. Without this, there would be a case of 'tissue rejection' or the proverbial 'the
body is willing but the spirit is weak' as teachers would not be able to cope with the
demands of Curriculum 2005.
The focus of this study is particularly on the (English) language teacher, whose task
has been made all the more difficult by the constitutional stipulation that eleven of the
languages spoken in the Republic of South Africa should be considered as official
languages - an unnecessary drain on the fragile economy. Besides, as there is no
clear-cut directive from the national Department of Education, English language
teachers are faced with a situation in which they do not know which variety of English
to teach. The problem is further compounded by the obvious lack of training for the
teachers in second language teaching techniques and their own communication
competence. Teachers in rural areas are the worse hit, as they are not exposed to
any of the advances in modern technology, which could easily compensate for their
inadequacies.
The study postulates that until serious attempts are made to remedy and solve such
problems, the introduction of Curriculum 2005 and/or any other curriculum
innovations will be an exercise in futility. The investigation conducted to examine this
claim has delivered findings that support this claim. It has also shown that the sample
of teachers drawn from a rural population have little linguistic awareness, limited
competence in English and practise a pedagogy that borders on a fraudulent use of
so-called 'OBE techniques', without sufficient knowledge and/or understanding.