Epistemicide occurs when one knowledge is exalted at the expense of local or indigenous knowledge systems leading to the demise of such knowledge systems. In this article, I focus on how some conceptions and ways of incorporating indigenous knowledge systems seem to be entangled in the same misnomer to which they owe their existence (i.e. a…

Curriculum reform was high on the agenda of South Africa's post-apartheid governments. Yet as time passed, the initial reforms were seen as increasingly problematic, especially when pedagogical realities met policy priorities. There was reluctance on the part of policymakers to give up what was seen as the democratic imperative behind the reforms.…

This article refers to the South African Design teachers' attitudes towards the implementation of the 2020 Section 4 amendments of the Design Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). The purpose of the article is twofold: first to establish the necessity for "awareness" of the teachers' attitudes towards curriculum changes,…

The purpose of the study reported on here was to investigate the role of partnerships in helping in-service teachers overcome the difficulties associated with performing practical work prescribed in the Life Sciences Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS), an educational policy intended to transform the South African school curriculum…

Post-apartheid South African curriculum reforms, from outcomes-based education (OBE) to the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS), resulted in different challenges. Teachers, in particular those teaching Physical Sciences in the Further Education and Training (FET) phase from Grades 10-12, were expected to cope with changes and master…

Standardised curriculum or standardized lesson plans (SLPs) have become an accepted strategy to support and improve instructional practices in schools worldwide. These standardised lesson plans (SLPs) were criticized in the 1970s and 1980s for deskilling the teaching profession and reducing the work of teachers to that of mere technicians. This…

The 2015-2016 South African higher education students' movement proved historical for our country in bringing to our dinner tables: issues of higher education transformation and decolonisation; institutional culture(s); curriculum reform; the need to foreground and make inclusive assessment in education; the coloniality in our knowledge…

Education in democratic South Africa has been saddled with the extraordinary task of sanitising a once dehumanising and splintered education system into a singular narrative of social justice and creative, problem-solving individuals. This extraordinary effort has witnessed a pendulum swing from the openness of outcomes-based education, to a less…

As South Africa transitioned from apartheid to democracy, changes in the political landscape, as well as educational agendas and discourse on both a national and international level, shaped successive waves of curriculum reform over a relatively short period of time. Using South Africa as a germane example of how curriculum and pedagogy can…

This article interrogates a curriculum recovery plan designed to obviate the loss of time due to the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, it analyses two strategies, the first to overcome time lost and the second, to reorganize the curriculum. A description of the landscape of inequalities in South Africa serves as a…

Despite the worldwide interest on transforming curricula, a case study examination of what really happens within an ODeL South African university context, has been much limited. By using psycho-social and social identity theory, we highlight the complexities involved in the process of transforming decades of teaching and learning practices. The…

This article reports on a study investigating physical sciences teachers' stages of concern (SoC) profiles during the implementation of the curriculum and assessment policy statement (CAPS) in South Africa. Throughout reform implementation, it is conceivable that teachers go through different SoC, ranging from giving low priority to the reform…

The paper addresses the question of what we should make of Michael Young's recent work with respect to curriculum theory by considering the particular case of South African curriculum reform. The paper thus traces two trajectories: the evolution of Michael Young's ideas over time and South African curriculum reform in the post-apartheid period.…

This study reports on the analysis of South African Life Sciences and Biology textbooks for the inclusion of the nature of science using a conceptual framework developed by Chiappetta, Fillman and Sethna (1991). In particular, we investigated the differences between the representation of the nature of science in Biology textbooks that were written…

Policy for young children in South Africa is now receiving high-level government support through the ANC's renewed commitment to redress poverty and inequity and creating "a better life for all" as promised before the 1994 election. In this article, I explore the power relations, knowledge hierarchies and discourses of childhood, family…