South Africa needs an economy which is competitive and successful. Therefore, it is
important that an education system will provide a skilled work force. Learners need to
develop biology skills that will equip them for life, enable them to solve problems and think
critically. Unfortunately South Africa is presently encountering a lack of skilled citizens. The
reasons for this most probably is that the biology curriculum is mainly discipline-based,
content-loaded and largely irrelevant, resulting in learners not furthering their studies in
biology and related fields.
The biology matriculation examination has a strangle hold on what is taught. Lengthy,
content-loaded curricula emphasise the memorising of facts by means of expository
teaching methods, leaving little opportunity to teach the application of information and
skills to solve problems in real life situations. The teaching methods of biology are thus not
sufficiently stimulating and motivating. Biology teaching should not only concentrate on
facts or explain facts to learners, but should also concentrate on ways or processes by
means of which these facts can be obtained.
To implement a process approach where learners can develop basic- and integrated skills
is not an easy task for those involved. The empirical research of this study, confirmed the
findings throughout the literature study that various factors hamper the effective
implementation of the process approach. It is important that negative factors such as 'large
classes' and 'a lengthy syllabus' (in historically disadvantaged [HD] and advantaged schools
[HA]) and 'lack of equipment' and 'resource material' (only in HD schools) which received
high percentages in the survey, will duly be considered when implementing the process
approach, curriculum 2005 or 21. These factors can exert a powerful influence on the
success of any changes in biology education.
To ensure the successful implementation of the process approach it is important that all
teachers receive adequate in-service training to keep abreast with new teaching strategies and methods / Educational Studies / D.Ed. (Didactics)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/1113 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | De Jager, Thelma |
| Contributors | Ferreira, J. G. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (xv, 264 leaves) |
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