Human rights education is a much-investigated area of research; however, what teachers understand about human rights and the Life Skills explicit, enacted and supplementary curriculum seems to be vague. The vagueness related to the understanding of human rights emanated from multiple understandings of human rights that could be adhered to. Meta-theoretical underpinnings for the understanding of human rights have been discussed in the human rights body of scholarship. These meta-theoretical underpinnings of human rights were philosophically clustered to develop an analytical construct to guide this inquiry. This inquiry was focused on a contribution regarding teachers’ understanding of human rights education to augment the infusion of a human rights culture in diverse educational contexts. This inquiry was done, firstly, to explore the [in]consistencies between the meta-theoretical underpinnings of human rights and how they were reflected in the explicit, enacted and supplementary curriculum. Secondly, it was to explore how these influenced the way in which human rights were enacted in the curriculum. These consistencies and inconsistencies were deemed to be important because they affect the way human rights are understood and dealt with in the classroom directly. The aims of the research were to determine the meta-theoretical underpinnings of human rights in the intermediate phase Life Skills explicit, enacted and supplementary curriculum; the language(s) that emerged regarding the meta-theoretical underpinnings of human rights in the Life Skills enacted curriculum; and how the enacted and supplementary curriculum of human rights were influenced by teachers’ understandings of the meta-theoretical underpinnings. A qualitative study situated in an interpretivist paradigm was undertaken, using a shadowing methodology. Participants were purposefully selected. Data were generated by means of a document analysis as data generation strategy of the National Curriculum Statement Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement document, as well as the accompanying learning study materials, classroom observations through silent shadowing and a semi-structured one-on-one interview with each teacher. Data were analysed by means of discourse analysis. It was empirically found that the supplementary curriculum directly related to the explicit curriculum. The enacted curriculum revealed consistencies and inconsistencies within the explicit curriculum. Regarding teachers’ understanding of the explicit Life Skills curriculum, it was found that the teachers participating in this inquiry experienced limitations and restrictions regarding their own interpretations of the explicitly provided curriculum. Even when the teachers understood human rights slightly differently from the explicit and supplementary curriculum, they still only enacted what was provided in the explicit curriculum. My recommendations highlight the need to inquire about the way(s) in which teachers could be effectively supported by the Life Skills curriculum in terms of human rights enactment. A future essential study should inquire about the responsibility of each teacher with regard to human rights education and the ethical implications and considerations thereof. / MEd (Curriculum Development), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Human rights education is a much-investigated area of research; however, what teachers understand about human rights and the Life Skills explicit, enacted and supplementary curriculum seems to be vague. The vagueness related to the understanding of human rights emanated from multiple understandings of human rights that could be adhered to. Meta-theoretical underpinnings for the understanding of human rights have been discussed in the human rights body of scholarship. These meta-theoretical underpinnings of human rights were philosophically clustered to develop an analytical construct to guide this inquiry. This inquiry was focused on a contribution regarding teachers’ understanding of human rights education to augment the infusion of a human rights culture in diverse educational contexts. This inquiry was done, firstly, to explore the [in]consistencies between the meta-theoretical underpinnings of human rights and how they were reflected in the explicit, enacted and supplementary curriculum. Secondly, it was to explore how these influenced the way in which human rights were enacted in the curriculum. These consistencies and inconsistencies were deemed to be important because they affect the way human rights are understood and dealt with in the classroom directly. The aims of the research were to determine the meta-theoretical underpinnings of human rights in the intermediate phase Life Skills explicit, enacted and supplementary curriculum; the language(s) that emerged regarding the meta-theoretical underpinnings of human rights in the Life Skills enacted curriculum; and how the enacted and supplementary curriculum of human rights were influenced by teachers’ understandings of the meta-theoretical underpinnings. A qualitative study situated in an interpretivist paradigm was undertaken, using a shadowing methodology. Participants were purposefully selected. Data were generated by means of a document analysis as data generation strategy of the National Curriculum Statement Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement document, as well as the accompanying learning study materials, classroom observations through silent shadowing and a semi-structured one-on-one interview with each teacher. Data were analysed by means of discourse analysis. It was empirically found that the supplementary curriculum directly related to the explicit curriculum. The enacted curriculum revealed consistencies and inconsistencies within the explicit curriculum. Regarding teachers’ understanding of the explicit Life Skills curriculum, it was found that the teachers participating in this inquiry experienced limitations and restrictions regarding their own interpretations of the explicitly provided curriculum. Even when the teachers understood human rights slightly differently from the explicit and supplementary curriculum, they still only enacted what was provided in the explicit curriculum. My recommendations highlight the need to inquire about the way(s) in which teachers could be effectively supported by the Life Skills curriculum in terms of human rights enactment. A future essential study should inquire about the responsibility of each teacher with regard to human rights education and the ethical implications and considerations thereof. / MEd (Curriculum Development), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Thesis (MEd) -- University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Learning and the development of numeracy in the foundation phase are regarded as highly important. In this critical period learners attain the fundamental knowledge that is needed for future learning and development. A serious problem within South African schools is that a great number of foundation phase learners show difficulties in numeracy. Various reasons can be provided for these difficulties, for example, learners do not receive good teaching, they hold negative attitudes towards numeracy, they encounter language barriers, and so forth. It is important that the learners’ difficulties in numeracy are attended to immediately and effectively, to be able to minimise the gaps between the learners’ functioning level and the level the learner is suppose to be on. The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) laid bare their concern with the current problem in numeracy when they launched the WCED Literacy and Numeracy Strategy 2006-2016. As part of this the Metropole North Education and Management Development Centre (EMDC) requested and implemented an intervention programme for grade 2 and grade 3 learners. Part of this problem is that many foundation phase educators lack the necessary knowledge to identify the learners with difficulties and especially to attend to these difficulties. The goal of this research study was to investigate the realization of an early intervention programme implemented over a limited period of time of ten weeks in grade 2 and grade 3 classrooms. The current study aimed at providing educators with resources to offer learning support to their disadvantaged learners within the Numeracy classroom. This study has implications for the way in which educators approach and teach numeracy, as well as for the type of learning support the educators provide their disadvantaged learners with. The intervention programme is based on a problem centered approach with constructivism as underlying epistemology. This approach views the educator as a facilitator who provides the learners with opportunities to be actively involved in the learning environment to construct knowledge. The importance of word problems and discussion within the Numeracy classroom are emphasized and it is necessary that the educator create the appropriate classroom atmosphere so that this approach can be implemented effectively. Learning is an active process and it is the responsibility of the educator to provide the learners with appropriate learning activities for learning and development to take place. The study made use of programme evaluation as research methodology. Programme evaluation refers to a research goal instead of specific research methods, because various methods can be used which may be quantitative or qualitative in nature. The gathering of data was done through classroom observations by the researcher, informal interviews with participating educators, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews with the educators at the four schools the researcher monitored intensively during the implementation process of the intervention programme. The gathering of data was an ongoing process and the researcher analysed and interpreted the learners’ work at the end of the implementation process. The researcher checked this analysis by means of the literature review, transcripts and field notes. This formed the basis on which conclusions and recommendations could be made. The conclusions confirmed the importance of early intervention and the efficacy of the problem centered approach within the numeracy classroom. It also confirmed the disadvantages of the training model that was used, that is the Cascade model. With this study it was possible to determine that a ten week intervention programme was too short a period to observe meaningful improvements in learners. Therefore further research should be done on addressing learners’ difficulties and to train and support educators to provide learning support to their learners.