La religión y su influencia Barroco e Iglesia

A schooling curriculum is a vital component to learning and meaning making. One method of undoing the injustices of the past was through reworking the education system of the country; as education provides skills, opportunity, employment, poverty alleviation and helps to boost the county’s economy through job creation and having less crime. One of the key changes that came about with the election of a democratic government was addressing the education imbalances of the past by providing an equal education system for all South Africans; this was one of the first key issues the new government wanted to address initially as a means of moving forward and trying to undo some of the pass injustices. At this stage it is important that I highlight and discuss the South African education system and curriculum. The Continuous

Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) came about as an amendment from the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) and preceding this was the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS). CAPS provide educators with a grade and subject specific guideline entailing the outcomes, assessment and content that should be covered over a specific period of time (Jansen, 2008). The RNCS had four specific outcomes which focused on Literacy. The first outcome was reading and viewing. This outcome focused on the learner’s ability to read and see information and for enjoyment and respond critically to aesthetic, cultural and emotional values in texts. The second outcome writing and presenting suggested that the learner will be able to write various kinds of texts such as factual based and imaginative texts. The third outcome thinking and reasoning required learners to be able to use language as a mechanism to think critically and substantiate claims which they make. Furthermore, through these outcome learners were expected to able to use information for learning by either accessing or processing it. The last

outcome was language structure and use as this outcome wanted learners to recognise and use sounds, words, and grammar to create their own texts and to understand given texts (RNCS). In light of the above Literacy outcomes, these boil down to the function and practice of reading. Only through reading can learners attain these four outcomes. Reading opens up a world of discovery. Reading increases knowledge and is a base and foundation for all other literacy skills to be developed further.

One of the key developmental issues that arose from the NCS to CAPS was a call to improving the quality of learning. This led to resulted in the Annual National

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Assessments (ANA) that were written during the third term of school annually by Grade R-9 learners in public schools. The ANA test results is aimed at providing

educators with empirical evidence of the learners’ abilities and challenges at a particular grade and stage. These tests were also meant to indicate to the educator the critical foundation skills which the learner has acquired or still needs to acquire in order to progress in a particular grade. In 2015 the ANA’s was rejected by the teacher unions as educators refused to mark these ANA’s of the learners. They felt it was a waste of time and gave them extra marking which they did not have time for. Speculation also went around that some educators taught towards the ANA’s which was not the purpose of having ANA’s.

It is important for me to mention that the majority of the learners in grade 8 and 10 classes at CSS stem from Afrikaans speaking homes; however, they are at a school where the curriculum is taught as English being their home language. This furthermore is an issue that the school needs to address and deal with. My suggestion would be that these learners in particular be encouraged to read more especially in this case where they attend an English medium school and Afrikaans is their home language. Reading in English will help sharpen their reading skills and improve their vocabulary and understanding. In terms of Languages of Teaching and Learning (LoLT) in the Western Cape, Afrikaans and Xhosa are being marginalised (Mbatha & Plüddemann, 2004, p.34). Based on this quotation and the current affairs of South Africa especially looking at language in tuition, one can see that there is more emphasis placed on teaching and learning in English rather than in one’s mother tongue; and this also seems to be a global trend (teaching and learning in English). It is evident that the dominance of English is consolidated through the South African schooling system and societies beliefs at large. Language is power; parents choose to have their children educated in schools who have English as a medium of instruction as it is perceived as the language of the privilege and the language of status as it is promised to. English is perceived by parents as a stepping stone to success and a job and this is based on them being previously schooled under the apartheid regime where they were excluded from being educated in English medium schools. If one looks at South Africa’s hierarchy, we see that the Government uses English as the medium of communication in spite of the country’s eleven official languages. The common use of English in government and the

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business sector has reduced the status of languages such as Afrikaans and Xhosa (PRAESA: Papers No. 21).