Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the degree of amendments made within the Life Skills curriculum in the context of the transforming education system and its effects on teaching and learning. The study took place at a school in the Johannesburg North district. The reason this school was chosen was that the researcher is a teacher at the school, which proved to be convenient for the researcher to conduct interviews. This was especially helpful during the time when the Coronavirus was at its peak and limited or even restricted interaction between individuals. The study further identified the possible challenges that teachers were faced with in implementing the Life Skills curriculum each time there was a curriculum change. The study was qualitative in nature and adopted an interpretivist research design to investigate teachers and learners’ perceptions with regards to the implementation of the Life Skills curriculum. The researcher used the constructivist approach to argue how the constant changes have impacted teachers and learners both positively and negatively. The research was conducted using purposive sampling where participants were purposefully selected according to their knowledge and experience with the three curricula discussed in the study. Five Intermediate Phase Life Skills teachers were chosen and five Intermediate Phase learners from Grade five to seven were chosen. The researcher employed semi-structured interviews using open-ended questions, observations and document analysis as methods of data collection. Document analysis was used in order to validate the data that was collected through semi-structured interviews and observations. Data was analysed through thematic and content analysis that resulted in the emergence of ten teachers’ themes, which were combined and reduced six to themes. Ten learner themes emerged, which was reduced to three themes. The findings of the study indicated that there were teachers who were not qualified Life Skills teachers, who were teaching Life Skills. The findings highlighted how the teachers who were not qualified Life Skills teachers had difficulty in implementing the curriculum in comparison to those teachers who were qualified Life Skills teachers who adapted to the changes more easily. The study did, however, reveal that all teachers vi did not have sufficient support in implementing the changes to the Life Skills curriculum. Based on the findings that emerged from the interviews, the observations and the document analysis the researcher made the following recommendations to ensure the effective implementation of the Life Skills curriculum: the principal and governing body representatives should ensure that they employ teachers with the necessary qualifications required to teach Life Skills. Teachers should assist each other by planning lessons together. Furthermore, the School Management Team should be well-informed about the Life Skills policies in order to assist and support teachers where necessary. In addition, the School Management Team should raise awareness of the contextual factors that deter teaching and learning for the Department of Education to provide the school with the resources it needs for effective teaching and learning. Finally, the Life Skills curriculum should be viewed with the same importance and prioritised as the other core subjects.
M.Ed. (Curriculum Studies)