Page 13 - Demo

SHOULD WE
CUSTOMISE CURRICULA?
Nic Spaull, Senior Researcher at the Stellenbosch University Research on Socio-Economic Policy group
‘EDUCATION HAS BEEN
severely disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. There are things in the education system that we weren’t doing that we probably should have and which Covid may have pushed us into doing. They include distance-learning training and technology training for teachers, and fixing schools’ physical infrastructure.
‘Site-based schools and universities are great equalisers. Whether
you come from a shack or a mansion, coming together at the same site at school or university is a bit of a leveller. When we do away with that and learners or students are at home, their circumstances to a far greater extent determine what’s available to them.
‘In terms of possible opportunities, many people believe that there’s too much in
the curriculum across all grades. Because of that, teachers (in no-fee schools in particular) end up feeling like they don’t need to cover everything, because
it’s an impossible task to begin with. When you have a 300-page
curriculum document listing all the things you have to do for a Grade 2 child, teachers tend to let themselves off the hook by saying that it’s just not possible to do everything.
‘It may therefore be an opportunity, in this Covid context, to implement
a core curriculum and assessment policy,
that is, a core part of the curriculum that’s non-negotiable and that every single learner has to achieve.
‘For the longest time, we’ve been saying
that everyone has to follow the exact same curriculum, but a process of delineating what is at the core and what is on the periphery may be enduringly useful. No- one wants to implement a differentiated curriculum, because of obvious parallels to the apartheid system. But
I think there’s space
to recognise that if a Grade 5 learner can’t read, the teacher should, in that specific case, focus on teaching them to read, rather than whatever happens to
be in the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement document for Grade 5.’ M
ONLINE LEARNING
WILL BENEFIT THE POOR
Fergus Sampson, Business Manager: Curro
‘SCHOOLS HAVE HAD
TO THINK on their feet.
The lockdown brought an accelerated grab for digital tools and at-home tuition. That was the major switch
in how things are done. The mindset switch will follow, but hasn’t happened yet with regard to organised learning. As an independent group of schools, Curro is fortunate
in that we had already started to dabble in digital transformation before the pandemic. It therefore wasn’t an enormous leap for us.
‘When any sophisticated technology is put to use and made widely available, the ones who always benefit are the working class and the less fortunate. Take cellphones, for instance. They have dramatically improved the lives of South Africa’s underprivileged
and working class. I remember the days when people had to stand in
line at payphones during lunchtime to call their families or at stores’ accounts departments because they couldn’t call from work.
‘The unfolding evolution in online delivery is going to make for better education from a content point of
view, because you will
have access to the best information and the best presenters in the world. You will be able to have one
or two experts talking to potentially millions of kids. Plus it will be cheaper.
‘The pace, the timing,
the quality, the illustration
of it can all be comfortably manipulated online to suit not only the South African child in general but also
the individual child. For years, society has ignored the reality of children who learn differently and often misdiagnosed them, called them slow or learning- disabled, and put them on medication just to have them fit in with the norm. With online education, that is no longer necessary. Each child can find their rhythm and learn according to their capabilities and their pace.
‘A transition to
online promises to truly democratise education
and learning so that every child can find their place in the learning environment and learn productively. I’ve already seen modules that analyse how a child learns, and structure the curriculum accordingly. That is magical.’
ISSUE 1 2021 | 11
ILLUSTRATION: GALLO IMAGES/GETTY. PHOTOS: SUPPLIED