Abstract
M.Ed.
New vistas for research among educationists are being introduced through the implementation of the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS), the second phase of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) in South Africa that will be put into practice for the Foundation Phase from 2004. This essay seeks to engage at grassroots level with the people who are experiencing the new dispensation in the teaching of Literacy in the Foundation Phase: the educators, the learners and their parents and the district officials. It is a vital part of the change process, and the sustaining of the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS), that the present reforms are encouraged at all centres of learning: to this end educators are being trained during their holidays. The revised curriculum aims are empowering both learners and educators, with a particular emphasis on offering learners the necessary opportunity to equip themselves for life in society once they have finished school.
The setting of the study is a school in Gauteng, 90% of whose learners are from the informal settlement of Bekkersdal with its highly congested homes. The overcrowding in the shacks contributes to the difficulty of the learners in the area to master their work, and it is left to educators in the area to bear full responsibility for the education of the learners, for parents in the area are unable to be involved in the process for most of them are illiterate. Individual educators in the school, aware of the sociological factors that impact in a negative manner on the schooling in the area, are expected to “go an extra mile” to empower learners so that they, becoming literate, have the opportunity to construct knowledge by means of knowledge sharing, exploration, asking questions and active participation in the classroom.
Dr. M.C. van Loggerenberg