Curriculum transformation means robust and drastic changes, not within the curriculum itself, but changes of a curriculum holistically for a new curriculum altogether. South African government bluffed about curriculum transformation when they adopted the dismally failed Outcomes Based Education (OBE) curriculum in the past. After realization of their disaster they then moved to Curriculum 2005. From there, they did not even change the curriculum, they only changed polices within the curriculum and they ended up producing Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) and from that we have now been introduced to the so called National Curriculum Statement (NCS). All these models are not qualified to be called curriculum transformation tools, these are just policies within the wrong curriculum, nothing changed, the curriculum remains the same as it was since 1994. This paper aims to reveal the brief history of the curriculum (OBE) and its policy changes through Curriculum 2005, RNCS, and NCS and their dismal failures. The paper will further reveal that these models do not address what south African education needs. The paper will conclude by the provision of what curriculum transformation really is.

Outcomes Based Education(OBE), according to Cross et al (2002), can be described as a global educational curriculum reform phenomenon with adaptations and local responses in South Africa whose origins and evolution can be traced to competency based debates in Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Canada and limited circles in the United States. It is part of ideas that through globalization processes have gained echo in different contexts and express converging trends in educational systems throughout the world (e.g. the centralization/decentralization debates, the school effectiveness debates and recently the school improvement approaches). With few exceptions, OBE still remains an experiment at different levels of national policy. In Australia it has become part of a national mission with regional adaptations. In Canada it has been a provincial experiment that gained popularity in Ontario. In Scotland it has been restricted to vocational programmes within Glasgow. In the United States, it has been met with a great deal of hostility at state level but has some acceptance at district level. Although OBE has been referred to differently in these countries, it has common or similar practices In South Africa, OBE was not an educational borrowing just handed down and accepted uncritically by South Africans (https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/facultyofeducation/ali-mazrui-centre/Michael%20Cross%20Publications/From%20Policy%20to%20Pra).

This is a conclusive proof that OBE was a huge failure in South Africa as the curriculum did not even consider the unique background and struggles of an African child. OBE overlooked the experiences and the living realities of African children that south African kids experienced every day of their lives. The curriculum was too Western for an African child to relate to it, for the content within the curriculum was of the developed countries while south Africa and many African countries were suffering from severe poverty, lack of electricity, water and sanitation, HIV/AIDS etc. Africa couldn’t relate to the OBE for the lifestyle and problem solving techniques promoted by the OBE curriculum were foreign to Africans. After the south African government realized the irrelevancy of this curriculum, they came up with Curriculum 2005 and shortly thereafter introduced RNCS which still consisted of OBE educational philosophy. The nation was told that the Revised National Curriculum Statement streamlines and strengthens Curriculum 2005 and continues to be committed to outcomes-based education. It is a part of the process of transforming education and training to realize the aims of our democratic society and of the Constitution.

Curriculum 2005 was then introduced on the 24 March 1997 by the then Minister of Education, Professor Bengu, announced the Government’s intention to adopt policy in the area of school curriculum which was based on the notion of outcome-based education (OBE) and titled ‘Curriculum 2005` C2005 was intended by the Ministry to be a coherent policy initiative that would change the nature of schooling in line with the aim of introducing transformation concerning learning and teaching (http://etd.uwc.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11394/1362/DeWaal_MPA_2004.pdf?sequence=1). Even the introduction of this curriculum, nothing changed in helping our education to be meaningful. The south African curriculum remained the same. The RNCS that was claimed to be strengthening Curriculum 2005 brought about no changes either, none whatsoever!  Learners were still doing what they were doing during the explicit OBE borrowed curriculum. The curriculum remained the ‘’one size fits all’’ curriculum system model as it was before. Learners still undertook subjects that never had meaning to their life aspirations. Nothing changed, the curriculum remained the same. This is a proof that what had changed here was a policy, not a curriculum. South Africa has never changed the curriculum, not even once! Even the current curriculum (NCS) is still the OBE/Curriculum 2005/RNCS model. If the curriculum had changed, the market would be hiring our graduates, unemployment rate would be way less than it is currently. The sign that curriculum never changed is the high rate of unemployment amongst young people. Another obvious sign is that learners are still struggling to find meaning of the curriculum they are undertaking at school. And the fact that parents are removing their children from public to private schools is another sign of no transformation in the curriculum.

The day south Africa take up educational arms and go to war against the meaningless curriculum we currently all suffer from, South Africa would dismantle the NCS curriculum and formulate a completely new curriculum. That curriculum will disallow aspiring lawyers to be in the same class with aspiring accountants etc. That curriculum will separate learners in accordance with their various career paths and enroll them in separate stations (schools). That curriculum will declare Afrikaans as an option for learners to choose to either do it or not do it. That curriculum will depend upon the market to contribute in the curriculum design and development for the sake of relevancy. It will be a practical curriculum that draws a child closer to his/her career choice. It will never force learners to do subjects that are meaningless and irrelevant from their career paths. This curriculum will cater for individualistic traits and unique talents of all learners and channel them where they truly fit. The curriculum will ensure that a learner who struggles with Maths or English Literature has a future too and not deemed stupid as the current curriculum does.  The name of that curriculum is Personalized education curriculum system (PECS).

Personalized education curriculum system (PECS) refers to the education system that caters for the unique personal traits and future desires of an individual child. It is an individualized curriculum system that seeks to fuel learners straight to their career path through a carefully designed program of assessment and an innovative teaching plan. Personalized education curriculum system means that education is theoretical – practical balanced and future orientated. This curriculum is a responsive tool that encourages individuality and is career path focused rather than mass education system, where aspiring lawyers, doctors, pilots, politicians, actuaries, chefs etc are all in one classroom, taught by one teacher, with one teaching style. This is a curriculum system that seeks to protect a learner from doing irrelevant subjects from his/her career path – an engineer doesn’t need English literature (Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet) and Trigonometry and solve for x can be a stumbling block for an aspiring journalist or lawyer! This is a far-reaching education curriculum system that seeks to put learning and teaching into perspective. Until government adopt such a curriculum, they are just bluffing about curriculum transformation and they really haven’t transformed education in our country at all!

Learn more about PECS? Click here: https://simnandisolutions.co.za/personalized-education/ – Click on PECS PowerPoint presentation.

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