D.Ed. / South African education policy identities curriculum delivery as the core process in education and INSET, EMD (Education Management and Development) and enabling functions as the strategic levers for curriculum delivery (Employment of Educators Act 76 of 1998, PAM Chap A, paragraph 4, 3C-15). With regard to EMD, the strategic lever which is the focus of this research, the EMD curriculum delivery nexus prompts the need to examine those curriculum and education management and development theories, practices,_structures,-policies-and-their-interrelationships-that-will-drivesupport- -and complement the 'core process' in South African education. Since 1994 to date, educational transformation broadly and curriculum change and development, specifically, has been predominantly characterised by education policy formulation rather than education policy implementation. There is concern that the state of readiness at the site of implementation has not been comprehensively gauged. et al (In Chisholm Karlsson, 2000:2) claims that despite 'the establishment of sound legal and regulatory frameworks to facilitate the process of change, it is at the level of policy implementation - that is, at the school level - that the major crisis points appear to be'. The 2000 Curriculum Review Committee, commissioned by the National Minister, makes similar findings and outlines some of the major challenges in implementing new curriculum policy frameworks. Where supportive legal and regulatory frameworks have not been effectively responsive to the inhibiting factors at the site of implementation - school level - this could have been avoided had the implementation landscape informed the facilitating frameworks at the outset. A key objective of the research was to elicit the perceptions, by means of a questionnaire, that school education managers (Principals and SMTs) and school educators (non-SMT members) have of the school's internal organisational and management arrangements and particularly the EMD role that the SMT plays to support curriculum change, development and delivery, and the nature, quality and impact of the support that district officials contribute to the school's curriculum change development and delivery processes. Broad foci of this investigation included consultative strategic policy planning, implementation and support approaches at the district-school interface, specifically, consultative curriculum and organisational change management and support strategies and key partnering, incentive and feedback strategies both within and between the two levels of curriculum delivery. Aspects that impact on effective policy implementation and curriculum delivery, such as performance monitoring, capacity building, quality support and district-school organisational alignment at the interface, are also considered. Generally low factor mean scores - illustrating readings at the neither disagree nor agree i.e. 3 on the Likert scale - were acquired with regard to district-school alignment of action plans and district support. This indicates that the strategic levers/ processes, namely education management and development and INSET, has not been adequately developed to facilitate effective curriculum change, development and delivery. Thus the research problem as identified in paragraph three. Findings from focus group interviews, conducted with district officials and triangulated with the questionnaire and literature survey findings, related largely to the internal district dynamics and processes and the quality of district support at the district-school interface. The ultimate aim of the research was concerned with informing an EMD theoretical orientation and practical framework that support reflexive curriculum change, development and delivery. The research draws attention to perspectives, emanating from both the literature survey and the research findings of the kinds of interactive curricular and organisational practices that could support effective curriculum delivery at the district-school interface. Practices that emphasise district-school performance alignment, whole school development, and structures and processes that provide opportunities for dialogue, mentoring, coaching and support in managing the curriculum were all recommended for bridging the theory-policy-practice divide.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:9244 |
| Date | 14 August 2012 |
| Creators | Parsard, Nishana Beharie. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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