A research report submitted to the Faculty of Education,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of
Education.
June, 1998. / Technical colleges are pivotal in the integration process of education and training
systems in South Africa. Technical colleges aim to train ar 1 equip individuals with
skills and knowledge that will help them function and contribute adequately to the
development of the country. In order to do this, the development and
implementation of technical colleges' curriculum becomes critical. This study
examines factors that influence changes in the curriculum development and
implementation in technical colleges in Gauteng area. Two schools of thought.
human capital theorists and social democratic proponent's views are reviewed. The
human capital theorists argue that education is an investment that should yield
economic benefits.They state that the curriculum should be influenced by economic
and social factors. The social democratic proponents. for their part. argue that
education has the social responsibility of developing individual potential. They state
that the curriculum should be broad in order to cater for the diverse needs of the
populace. Both the international and local literature has linked the demands for
change in the curriculum to the advanced technological modes of production in the
workplace. The local debates, though often a response to the international
arguments, address a number of national issues such as equity, access,
redistribution and economic growth. The research adopted a qualitative
methodology. Data were collected through documents analysis and interviews. Six
principals from technical colleges and representatives of three organisations:
labour, employer and technical education development cooperation formed the
research sample. The data were classified into three major ther u=s:the nature of
the curriculum, curriculum development processes and implementation of the
curriculum. Through these themes, the interviewees identified problems with the
curriculum as outdated. irrelevant, inadequately funded and lacking autonomy. They
recommended that in order for technical colleges to contribute adequately to
economic and social development. there should be constant revision of the
curriculum, staff development, fewer government restrictions, adequate provision of
infrastructure and formation of partnerships amongst stakeholders / MT2017
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/22717 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Enkeanyanwu, Anna Chinagorom |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (127 leaves), application/pdf |
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