Faculty of Humanities (ETDs)

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    A review of the school-based support teams (SBST) experiences in the implementation of curriculum policy (CAPS): challenges of reading and writing
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Mokoko, Thembinkosi; Thani, Glodean
    This research focuses on the School-Based Support Teams (SBST) experiences in facilitating the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) imperatives of reading and writing in two primary schools in Gauteng, South Africa, towards effective curriculum implementation. Research shows that South African learners have low literacy skills, and that impacts negatively on curriculum implementation because the core skills needed in learners responding to the curriculum are being able to read and write. The Education White Paper 6 of 2001 points out that all learners can learn; however, they learn differently, and they should be supported hence, the SBST is established in all South African schools to strengthen support to promote inclusive classroom education practices. The SBST works with various stakeholders who serve as support structures in promoting and enhancing effective curriculum implementation. This study used qualitative research methodology, which enabled investigative and descriptive inquiry. The purpose of this study was to assist and explore SBST experiences in developing strategies to support teachers and learners in promoting the CAPS Imperative of reading and writing toward an effective curriculum implementation in the classroom. Data was collected through interviews that involved eight SBST members in both schools, one-on-one interviews were conducted. The collected data was analyzed and categorized into various themes that emerged from the interpretation of the data. Sampling was based on non-probability and purposive sampling. This study made use of thematic analysis, which is a method to analyze qualitative data (Braun & Clarke, 2022). The thematic analysis involves analyzing transcripts, identifying themes within those data, and gathering examples of those themes from the text (Chadwick et al., 2008). The data revealed challenges SBST faces in facilitating CAPS imperative of reading and writing, which includes workload, lack of parental support, and interference with policy practice. This showed that there is a dire need for SBST to be strengthened and supported to be able to provide curriculum support to both teachers and learners. There are insufficient effective strategies from the interviewed SBST and a lack of skills in facilitating CAPS imperative of promoting reading and writing in the classroom towards effective curriculum implementation.
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    Towards a Decolonized and Africanized School History Curriculum in post apartheid South Africa
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-10) Maluleka, Paul; Ramoupi, Neo Lekgotla; Mathebula, Thokozani
    This study explores and discusses ways in which the School History Curriculum (SHC) in South Africa was designed by colonialists to depict their history favourably and how this continues to be the case after independence. The study also investigates ways in which the SHC could be decolonized and Africanized, especially where knowledge building is a concern. This is done both conceptually and empirically. Conceptually, a critical decolonial conceptual framework strengthened with Bernstein’s Code Theory and Pedagogic Device, Maton’s Epistemic-Pedagogic Device, and Legitimation Code Theory’s Autonomy dimension were employed. Firstly, to highlight how the legacy of colonialism, apartheid, coloniality, and their monolithic epistemic nature, and to some extent, their alienating pedagogic and assessment practices, continue to underpin the SHC in post-apartheid South Africa. Secondly, to explore conceptual ways in which decoloniality could be applied in curriculum knowledge building and its structures in cumulative and principled ways. This was done to counter much of the knowledge blindness that characterize sociology of education including many of the calls for decolonization and Africanization. In turn, this was meant to reposition scholarship on decolonization and Africanization to also be vested in a sociological approach to knowledge and curriculum that is vested in investigating the relations within knowledge and curriculum and their intrinsic structures. A qualitative research approach was adopted, and semi-structured interviews were used as methods of generating empirical data, with descriptive and interpretive elements of data analysis used to engage the data. Empirically, four in-service history educators from Gauteng and Limpopo Provinces were purposefully and conveniently selected. The purpose of interviewing in-service history educators was to gain insights into how they thought of the current SHC. Whether, according to them, calls to decolonize and Africanize the SHC were imperative and justified, and how they could be carried out. Both the conceptual and empirical findings reveal that there is a need to decolonize and Africanize SHC in post-apartheid South Africa given that its knowledge base is still characterized by the legacy of colonialism, apartheid, and coloniality. To achieve this, both the conceptual and empirical findings pointed out the need to reimagine and construct epistemologies, ontologies and methodologies that not only move beyond universal explanations of the world; but embrace trans-modernist and pluriversal explanations of the world. These are informed and shaped by time and the place, perspective, orientation, and situatedness of their authors. Secondly, the findings of the study revealed how historical knowledge is both dialectically and intersectionally produced, recontextualized and reproduced in the three fields of practice. Interrogating critically who are the knowers that are legitimated and de-legitimated in all these processes, can enable us to better understand the colonizing gaze that continues to characterize the SHC. It can also allow us to better understand how these fields of practice can also be seen as spaces where de-legitimated knowledge and knowers are recentred and where decolonization and Africanization can happen. This would see the continued marginalization of indigenous knowledge systems, traditions, and cultural practices in the SHC at the altar of Eurocentric methods being disrupted. Thirdly, the findings also pointed out that presently CAPS SHC does not have a settled African philosophy (of education): it is torn between two worlds, i.e., the universal and the particular. In a strict education for Africanization sense, the SHC in post-apartheid South African schools should be perceived first and foremost as a professional philosophical project that African philosophers in higher education devote their time and energy to. Second, a sage project that oMakhulu’s as part of the broader school communities help in-service history educators and their learners through oral history and research projects to address problems and deal with issues facing locals. Last, but not least, it should be perceived as a hermeneutic project that brings philosophy down from the sky, i.e., helps both in-service educators and their learners to make practical sense of deep philosophical issues in post-apartheid South African schools.
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    Bolemogi jwa diponagalo tsa ditumisapuo mo tokafatsong ya dipuiso tsa Setswana
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Pule, Violet Maphefo Sefolaro
    This study aimed at addressing the impact of prosodic features in reading because of its contribution to meaning in language - Setswana. The study is responding to the literacy report by Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) of 2016 which reported that more than 80% of grade 4 learners who were tested in an African language could not read for meaning. Reading in African languages appears to be problematic in the Intermediate Phase specially to comprehend the meaning intend. The main aim of the study was to investigate the impact of prosodic features in comprehending Setswana readings. The research study noted the lack of prosodic feature awareness in enhancing and supporting learner’s literacy and culture of reading, because of its valuable significance when dealing with reading fluency with regards to speech sounds, tonology and syllable. This research was based on the semiotic theoretical framework, as it is concerned with how signs are used for interpretation. The focus of the study is on the Intermediate Phase of eight schools where Setswana is taught as a Home and/or as a First Additional Language. The mixed method approaches (qualitative and quantitative methods) were used to collect and analysed data. Random sampling was used to select participants. Descriptive method was used to analysed both methods. The study is of the idea that new ways of stressing prosodic markings (such as tones, accent, stress, and rhythm) must be accorded special attention in the education system in South Africa in such a manner that learners are able to extract meaning and comprehend what they read. The study found that there is a lot of confusion when words are not marked, as learners cannot know which meaning is intended. As mentioned, the problem in reading Setswana books is not in reading, but in comprehending. The study of prosodic features came as a best study that plays an important role in extracting the meaning from words, reading fluency and enhancing reading culture. Comprehending is a very important elements in the four skills that are focused on in the teaching of reading, and it has only been listed as sub-skill, not as a main skill that needed to be acquired throughout because no skill will be successfully achieved without the skill of comprehending.