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M. Tech. Education / Since 1994, the field of education in South Africa has been facing a huge number of challenges. Curriculums and matters associated with curriculums in South Africa did unfortunately not escape these challenges. The current state of affairs is that South African educators do not play any part in curriculum development and are in no way involved in it. It seems that curriculums developed somewhere by government officials, or so-called curriculum specialists, and that those curriculums are then handed over to the educators for implementation. The above situation is a cause of concern for educator, who despite being regarded as the most important stakeholders in education; ironically have no say in the curriculums they have to implement. The current top down approach in curriculum development is detrimental to education in this country, since educators cannot adjust something they were not part of. Educators, business people and parents should be afforded opportunities to become partners in the process of curriculum development by letting their voices be heard before the actual implementation of any curriculum development. It is therefore imperative that educators should be given opportunities and platforms to give their inputs and to play an active role in all curriculum matters. Educators are the principal role-players in addressing educational challenges. The process has not yet stabilised and therefore it is so important that there should be dialogue about what is expected of educators when it is suggested that they should be involved in curriculum development. The main purpose of this study was to investigate and explain the possible links between curriculum development and the involvement of educators.

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This thesis chronicles a journey for which there is no end. The journey is the author's search for authentic curriculum -- teaching and learning built around socially relevant themes, designed through an organic development process, and negotiated in relation to the interests of individual learners and the communities that support them. In struggling to find a "lens" that would allow children to navigate change in an increasingly complicated society, the author shifted her focus from the substantive domain to the perceptual. Influenced by Case's (1995) discourse regarding the nurturing of "global perspectives" in young children, the author identified nine characteristics of a "global/diversity" perspective. Rather than infusing curriculum with more information, teachers would nurture an approach to learning that permits children to suspend judgment, entertain contrary positions, anticipate complexity, and tolerate ambiguity. Through the use of "counter-hegemonic" children's literature the author found she could nurture the "seeds" of alternative perspectives forming a strong foundation for understanding and tolerance in the classroom and beyond. It is important to emphasise that the author had to internalise a "global/diversity perspective" herself in order to nurture it in others through a generative process she refers to as "living curriculum". The research methodology of currere was employed as a means of exorcising the unacknowledged biases, personal contradictions, and divergent influences that have fed the author's identity, and thus necessarily informed her philosophies and actions as an educator. The methodology of autobiography was a critical factor in permitting the author to recognise and take ownership of her own education. Autobiography led her into the tangled garden and compelled her to make sense of its organic cycles. The method of autobiography typically rattles the comfort margins of educational researchers who see it as patronising sentimentality, rather than a rigorous analysis of self-knowledge within contemporary scholarship. It is important that autobiographical researchers demonstrate resonance of their lived experience in scholarly discourse and pedagogy. The author discusses a number of possible criteria that could be used to evaluate autobiographical research - the most important of these being that the work spawns reflection and stirs praxis within the reader.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the biological science curriculum was being implemented at the secondary school level in Kenya under the 8-4-4 system of education. In this study, the case method was used to investigate implementation in two secondary schools in Baringo district, Kenya. Data were collected using observation, interviews, questionnaires, and audio recordings. / Implementation standards were found to be rather low because of a number of factors. The general laboratories in the two schools of the study were poorly equipped, and textbooks available to students were too few. Moreover, the textbooks were reported as being shallow and sketchy. In addition, the content of some topics was too difficult especially at the lower secondary (Forms I and II) level. The syllabus was also too wide for satisfactory coverage in the four-year duration of secondary education. / An additional problem found was that there were no inservice courses for the biology teachers. It was also found that the head teachers played a limited role as instructional supervisors because most of their time was spent on administrative duties.

This phenomenographic study explores the intentions, ideals, and practices that shape educational leaders' conceptions of curriculum integration. The study uses documents and interviews to analyse the integrative elements of three of Quebec's key educational reform documents: The final report from the commissioners of the Estates General on Education; Reaffirming the mission of our schools: Report of the task force on curriculum reform ; and the Quebec Education Program. Fifteen curriculum reform leaders who participated in the process of drafting these documents were interviewed about their conceptions of curriculum integration. The conceptual framework used to study Quebec's conceptions of curriculum integration stemmed from the review of the research literature. This study's revised framework may provide curriculum developers and other educational leaders with a template for exploring integrative intents, ideals, and practices coherent with their conceptions.

The study aimed at exploring curriculum responses to community-based air pollution. This was done through an analysis of educator and learner perceptions of community-based air pollution and an examination of how the curriculum (teaching and learning content) responds to local air pollution. The key forms of the study - (what are the perceptions of educators and learners to community-based air pollution and how do educators and learners respond to community-based air pollution within the formal curriculum). Ethnography as a qualitative methodology was adopted in the study. This methodological tool created spaces to understand curriculum responsiveness in the context of wider social and political power relations in the South Durban Basin. Ethnography suited the study since it was a unique example of educators and learners in real situations and lived experiences, and enabled a clearer understanding of the theory and praxis of curriculum. The primary research methodology used in order to gather data to answer the research questions was observation, participant observation and interviewing of educators and learners. This study was conducted with educators and learners in the Further Education and Training phase (Grade 10), within the Human and Social Sciences in the year 2006 . Curriculum responses to community-based air pollution in Geography and Life Orientation were investigated. Learners were traced from previous primary schools in the area and who were in Grade 10. It was found that all participants in the study were knowledgeable and well informed about air pollution through consistent exposure to local air pollution. Collectively, they presented a sense of enduring struggle against community-based air pollution. They have been part of the struggle for clean air for many years and reside in the South Durban Basin. Participants display perspicuity in respect of how air pollution infects and affects them . Attempts at including community-based air pollution into the curriculum have been sporadic and at times incidental from learners' point of view . On the other hand, educators' responses were very constructive and established . Furthermore with reference to curriculum response to the subjects Geography and Life Orientation, both educators and learners responses were similar in that they displayed sophisticated accounts of knowledge of community-based air pollution. There was a deep sense of understanding of content and related to lived experiences. It was also found that educators and learners choose to live optimistically amidst the air pollution at Valley Secondary. Issues of class, poverty and powerlessness emerge from the data - these govern the lives of educators and learners. Participants in the study provided several motivations for Environmental Education to be included as a separate subject for future curriculum initiatives by the Department of Education. The recommendations included a strong need for responsive teaching to community-based air pollution. Learners should also be guided on how they should handle air pollution incidents. Recommendations in respect of re-organising the existent Environmental Club at Valley Secondary School also emerged. There is a clear sense that schools in the area should mobilise against the cooperate giants. Recommendations were provided for Curriculum Planners , Policy, and Policy Makers at the level of the Department of Education for the inclusion of Environmental Education as a separate subject rather than a devolved input. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.

This study focuses on moral values in education, in particular, their inclusion as part of the academic curricula of Durban University of Technology (DUT), Faculty of Management Sciences. The literature lends much support for moral values as being important for students and Higher Education as a whole but there is still very little focus provided with regards to having them incorporated as part of a module in the programmes of Higher Education. This study is based on the researcher’s view that the teaching of moral values should be intrinsically linked to academic programmes to produce well groomed graduates who would become morally responsible and add value to a democratic society and in particular the world of work. The research study seeks to ascertain the opinions of the students and staff of DUT concerning: - the integration of the study of moral values in academic programmes at the DUT? and - the roles staff and students could play in reinforcing the importance of moral values? This research falls within an interpretivist paradigm and takes a qualitative approach as it examines views, perceptions and feelings of the relevant role players of the Durban University of Technology. The Faculty of Management Sciences is chosen for this research study. Students from the cohorts of 1st, 2nd and 3rd year levels of the four selected departments are chosen as part of the research sample. The sample also includes three academic staff from the four selected departments as well as all Heads of Departments from the Faculty. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with management members chosen by the researcher. Arising from the findings of the study, staff and students are of the view that if moral values are absent in students they will display a negative behaviour which has an adverse impact on their working career. Many students are of the view that including moral values in the curricula of Higher Education will build students’ characters and morally equip and develop them into responsible citizens. Arising from the strong support of the various stakeholders, it is recommended that the teaching of moral values should be integrated in the curricula of Higher Education. It is also recommended that educators and management lead by example and be role models to their students. Debates, case studies and community-based learning in relation to ethical issues are some of the more popular teaching methods that are recommended. It can be concluded that there is support from various authors and major role players for the integration of moral values in the curricula of Higher Education.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2010.