Research Projects

• Implementing Curriculum Change
• Inclusion
• Language and Literacy
• Leadership and Management
• PhD Studentships
• School Design
• School Effectiveness
• The Use of ICT

Implementing Curriculum Change

Mathematics and science curricula have been at the centre of major reforms in South Africa aimed at developing learners’ critical thinking skills, including their mathematical and scientific literacy. Transforming these noble curriculum reform initiatives into effective practice is a challenge that is faced by educators all over the world. South Africa’s relatively recent Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) stresses the importance of problem solving, critical thinking and argumentation skills. There has been little, if any, sustained research, however, that aims to identify appropriate tools and strategies through which this aspect of the new curriculum can be implemented. Rwanda is currently implementing an entirely new outcomes based curriculum. In Pakistan, there are particular gender issues arising in both curriculum design and implementation.

Research Questions

What conceptual skills of both educators and learners would allow for an appropriate implementation of the curriculum?

What specific approaches would be most advantageous for situations of poverty and gender equity?

What conditions enable these practices to be rolled out from the original core sites to similar contexts?

How can learners, teachers, parents and district officials be engaged to support curriculum change?

In what ways can policy makers and curriculum implementers be engaged to participate in the mainstreaming of the strategies developed in this project?

Video interview about the ICC Project

Collaborative Action Research Approach

Lead Institution: University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Contact: Mario Pillay Mathramuthu.Pillay@wits.ac.za

Preliminary findings

These findings are taken from the baseline study carried out in the three countries.

Instructional approaches in mathematics and science.
The teachers in the three countries are all grappling with the new curricula that has been introduced. Problem solving, critical thinking and argumentation are new constructs and teaching in ways that enhance and engage learners enable them to practice and acquire these skills is a daunting task that the teachers themselves acknowledge.  It is established in the research that problematic topics in both mathematics and science are identified by the teachers and that materials should be developed and workshops that  hinge on instructional approaches that address problem-solving, critical thinking and argumentation are conducted. The teachers must be involved in evaluating the materials as well as in the facilitation of the workshops.

Language of both learning and instruction which is English in South Africa is in some cases a barrier to learning.

Poverty has been identified as a barrier to learning: Learners from relatively well off homes had support in the form of textbooks and other learning materials from the parents.

Gender Issues
In Pakistan boys and girls are in separate schools but the emphasis should be that both girls and boys are exposed to the same subjects and provided with equal opportunities. In South Africa and Rwanda there are both mixed and single sex schools. In the mixed schools the baseline study found that while teachers are aware of gender issues they do not deliberately address them in class. In South Africa there were discrepancies in the responses provided by the male teachers and those by the female teachers. The majority of the female teachers for instance responded in one of the questions in the survey that girls were being discouraged to take mathematics and other science subjects but majority of the male teachers said that this was not the case. 

Four of EdQual's research students are contributing to this project through their studies;