Abstract
While implementation research of the CAPS raises the issue of educators’ failure to implement the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) the cognitivist approach to policy implementation research foregrounds whether educators have understood the fundamental aspects of the reform. In addition to practical prescriptions for curriculum coverage, pacing of knowledge and assessing content, a fundamental shift in the CAPS is to a social realist epistemology. The aim of this study was to investigate how educators and the members of the School Management Team of a school understand and implement the (CAPS) in South Africa. This study is conceptually framed by the cognitivist approach on policy implementation that foreground cognition or sense making of the reform. The cognitivist theory distinguishes between individual cognition, situated cognition and cognition of policy signals. Thus, the aim of this study was to find out what educators understood and perceived the CAPS to be and how such sense-making was influenced by the culture and ethos of the school as well as the policy signals from the Department of Basic Education that educators were attentive to. The study was not limited to the educator as an individual entity from the school but also investigated the school’s culture in terms of its primary focus; the support provided by organisational structures in the school to educators to assist them with understanding and implementing the CAPS policy; addressing problems such as less time for coverage of content, large class sizes, heavy workload and conflict amongst educators; and the provision of learning and teaching support material (LTSM). The qualitative research methodology informed this study. To obtain the empirical data for the study, 13 participants which consisted of 3 SMT members and 10 educators were interviewed. The research finds that educator’s individual cognition did not take heed of the fundamental epistemological shift in CAPS. Data analysis revealed that the participants in the study focus on non-epistemological changes prescribed by CAPS. None of the participants noted the fundamental shift in the CAPS to a social realist epistemology and subject knowledge based curriculum that required rigorous mediation of subject content knowledge. This blind spot might be explained by training and professional development attempts by the department that focusses on content 10 coverage and pacing, complying with assessment prescriptions and keeping up with the ATP. Educators understand the purpose of CAPS in schools practically as to assist them with the selection, pacing and assessment of content. With reference to individual cognition, the main aspects of the CAPS that participants focused on were: large amount of content; content coverage; standardization of content and pacing; keeping up the prescribed pace; and complying with the ATP. With reference to situated cognition, data analysis revealed that the school culture and ethos provides a more than optimal context for the understanding and implementation of the CAPS as evidenced by: the school’s academic vision that is aligned with how the SMT articulated the aims for the school; strong implementation support is provided for curriculum implementation through department and school organizational structures: the department of education, subject advisor, district, school and subject department level at the school; initiatives by the school to deal with large class sizes by hiring educators paid by the school’s SGB; implementing school weekend camps to facilitate curriculum coverage and support all learners in understanding; ICT resources to support teaching and learning; provision of LTSM; and attempts to foster teamwork and collaboration at the school. With reference to policy signals the main policy signals to the participants are: compliance with content coverage prescriptions; compliance with pacing prescriptions in CAPS; and compliance with assessment prescriptions. The fact that all three have been broken down into strategies for monitoring by school, district and department regulatory structures provide further evidence for them being the key policy signals. 11 The implications of the findings for the department of education, SMTs and educators have been raised. Furthermore, avenues for further research have been outlined and recommendations for improving understanding and implementation of the fundamental changes in the CAPS have been provided.
M.Ed. (Curriculum Studies)