Marco conceptual

The research results suggest that an argumentation-based instructional model of teaching can help the learners to:

 Develop effective argumentation skills which they could use in learning concepts in science and perhaps in other subject areas and in life in general.  Develop a deeper and broadened understanding of a scientific concept.

 Develop skills to negotiate and harmonise contrasting explanations of a natural phenomenon coming from different worldviews.

The research results also seem to indicate that the learners who come to the schools already have an impressive repertoire of indigenous knowledge that the school cannot or should not ignore because such home knowledge affects the learning of the students.

If this is so, then, there are a number of implications for policy, curriculum development and instructional practices.

To a very large extent, this study was an attempt to determine the relative impact of implementing the South African government policy of integrating science and indigenous knowledge and the use of argumentation in the classroom as espoused by the Department of Education in Learning Outcome 3 Assessment Standard 1 of Physical Sciences at FET level which reads in part ‘to evaluate knowledge claims: recognise, discuss and compare the

scientific value of knowledge claims in indigenous knowledge systems and explain the acceptance of different claims.’

The results of this study have shown that, even after a relatively short period of exposure to integration and argumentation, learners can navigate, negotiate and harmonise apparently discordant explanations about natural phenomena that they receive from different worldviews and that in that process, their understanding of the natural phenomenon is enhanced. From this observation, one comes to the conclusion that if this policy was implemented in all science lessons and in all learning areas, the results would be phenomenal and extraordinary. In a nutshell, this study recommends the full implementation, in the schools, of the policy of integration through argumentation.

My experience during this study is that it is not easy to implement the policy. To begin with, one needs the cooperation of the community knowledge holders in order to get authentic indigenous knowledge to work with and use in one’s lessons and in order to ask for the knowledge holders’ input in one’s lessons. As was shown earlier on in subsection 5.1.4 above, that cooperation is not easy to get. I had to go through the community Chief to access the community knowledge holders and their knowledge.

Secondly, to implement the policy one needs expertise. One must know IK and science, how to integrate science and IK, and how to plan and use DAI lessons. Do the teachers have the prerequisite expertise? To what extent are pre-service and in-service teacher education courses supportive and informative of IKS, IK-science integration, and strategies that could be used to integrate the two systems? (Our school got B.ED students specialising in science from a local university from 2009 to 2012. These students did not seem conversant with learning outcomes and assessment standards, let alone learning outcome 3). To what extent do the teachers in the schools receive mentoring, monitoring, supervision, and guidance on the integration of the two systems? Are there practical suggestions from the Department of Education in South Africa on how the two systems could be integrated? How familiar are teachers and their supervisors with instructional methods such as argumentation?

The teachers were/are schooled in Western science and hence are more familiar with that worldview than with IKS. Most of these teachers were/are taught that science is superior to indigenous knowledge or that indigenous knowledge is of no value to modern life. Such teachers would need a complete new mind-set, a complete paradigm shift. To me, this is probably one of the most difficult adjustments that would be required in the Department of Education. We all know how difficult it is for people to change especially if the change requires a re-examination of one’s belief system and/or requires the acquisition of new skills and means more work.

Are teachers committed to IKS? Do the teachers subscribe to it? Many people, even some indigenous people, view indigenous knowledge in the negative. This was certainly the view of the learners who were involved in this study at the beginning of the intervention programme.

There is a lot of literature that seems to suggest that, for various reasons, teachers find it difficult to integrate the two systems (Nichol & Robinson, 2000; Ogawa, 1995; Ogunniyi, 2006, 2007a). In addition, it is a fairly well known, established and accepted fact that for teachers to be effective they must have strong academic skills (Ehrenberg & Brewer, 1994), appropriate formal training in the field in which they teach (Ingersoll, 1999), and several years of teaching experience (Murname & Phillips, 1981). Do the teachers in question have these qualities?

If the answer to any of these questions is in the negative, then the Department of Education would have to invest heavily to produce the required personnel with the requisite expertise to implement the policy or to monitor and help those who are trying to implement the policy. The work of SIKSP at UWC of training teachers to implement a science-IK curriculum in the South African schools is commendable. This initiative should help overcome some of the challenges raised above but it needs to be done on a wider scale and not just in the Western Cape Province.

One needs books to refer to and materials to use with the learners. All these are not easily available. Holtman (2008, p.2) talking about ‘Indigenous knowledge systems and education:

The South African perspective’ laments that

The core facilitators and implementers of this curriculum, the teachers, are now in a position where they have to teach and facilitate IKS with very little material having been developed to support the teachers.

This then calls for one to be extremely creative. One must always read and think in order to produce materials that can be used in the lessons. It requires a lot of time and ingenuity. This is not easy. The Department would have to invest heavily in the production of the much needed resources. The School of Mathematics and Science Education at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, through the Science and Indigenous Knowledge Systems Project (SIKSP) is producing teaching and learning materials that can be used to integrate science and indigenous knowledge in science lessons in schools. While these materials should go a long way in minimising the challenge of relevant materials, the project needs the support and involvement of the entire range of relevant stakeholders, especially other institutions of higher learning who are training teachers and the Department of Science and Technology.

Are today’s learners knowledgeable of IKS? How can teachers ascertain the authenticity and accuracy of the IKS brought to class by the learners? This study found that, despite the many years of contact with Western Education and Western science, and despite their young age, the learners involved in this study had a very remarkable repertoire of indigenous knowledge which resonated with the knowledge that I got from the community knowledge holders. The big question, however, is: Are today’s learners committed to IKS? Any negative attitudes towards IK must be overcome first before meaningful integration can take place. The problem that the learners seemed to have was that, initially at least, they did not think much of the indigenous knowledge that they had. They looked down upon that knowledge. To

them, indigenous knowledge was just a belief system for the rural poor people that is of no value in today’s modern life. Fortunately, as a result of this intervention programme, the learners began to appreciate the value of indigenous knowledge even in today’s technology driven life.

There are other constraints such as the learners’ problems with language and the fact that they may not be used to argumentation and may confuse argumentation with quarrelling. These are genuine concerns but my experience during this study is that the learners are very receptive and accommodative of new ideas and of new ways of doing things. When the learners were given the opportunity to freely discuss issues and when I supported their efforts through scaffolding and prompting, they were ready to ‘go’. The learners were very quick in assuming their new roles of knowledge producers from their usual role of knowledge consumers. My worry about the implementation of this policy is not about the learners, it is about the teachers and the Department of Education.

To what extent is the government of South Africa committed to the integration of IK and science? In 2004, the Department of Science and Technology in South Africa produced the

Indigenous Knowledge Systems Policy. This policy document is very informative and should

be useful in guiding the nation towards “the recognition, promotion, development, protection and affirmation of IKS” (p. 8). I, however, have my own misgivings. Is the policy document on integration clear and informative to the user system and to those who should monitor the system? What support systems did the government put in place to ensure success of the integration right at the beginning of the programme? These questions are pertinent because science and technology is increasingly being looked at as a way of enabling developing nations such as South Africa, to benefit from globalisation. Brown-Acquaye (2001) agrees with this sentiment when he contends that

Presently, in most developing countries, science and technology are seriously considered as agents of development. Governments in the developing countries are faced with the Herculean task of eradicating disease, poverty, and hunger, and believe that their salvation depends on science and technology- and what science and technology, apart from the time-tested Western modern science (WMS), is up to this task? (p. 68).

Brown- Acquaye (2001, p. 69) continues to state that

The dilemma of African governments (and I think this also at times applies to governments in most developing countries) is whether to employ tested, proved-to-be-effective WMS for the task of eradicating the poverty, disease, hunger, etc., or to rely on indigenous knowledge and technology whose results are left to chance.

To yet other people, including IK into the school curriculum is “retrogressive considering the present pace of global scientific and technological advancement” (Ogunsola-Bandele, 2009, p.54). Ogunniyi (2011) adds to this challenge by stating that there are gatekeepers of knowledge (people who have given themselves the task of determining what is and what is not legitimate knowledge) who oppose the inclusion of indigenous knowledge as a legitimate system of knowledge because they think that doing so is retrogressive and totally unwarranted in this day and age of globalisation and technological advancement.

Building capacity in science and technology becomes a priority (Rhea, 2002). In such a scenario, IKS would be pushed to the back seat again.

Ogunniyi (2007a, p. 2) identifies other challenges as follows:

New curricula demand new skills. In this case, argumentation and contextualisation in science discourses become important as compared to the teacher’s familiar mastery of science concepts. Educators may feel threatened by the new curriculum and choose to ignore it or pay lip service to it or they may fail to meet its demands. My experience with DAI is that it requires a lot of preparation (e.g. putting in place, often from scratch, materials which would teach the learners both the argumentative skills and the science concepts and skills important for their examinations). It also requires a lot of concentration so that one can capture, accurately, as much of what happens and is said during the debating sessions as possible. This is essential because such information would then be used later, with the class, to polish up their argumentative skills and sharpen and deepen their understanding of science concepts. This is not easy.

How feasible is the inclusion of indigenous knowledge into an examination-driven curriculum as that which we find in South Africa? For this study, I spent about 100 hours with the learners and the only science concept that the learners learnt which is important for their examination was “static electricity and lightning’. At this rate, the teacher would fail to cover enough content needed by the learners for their examinations.

Teachers generally resent curricula that are imposed from above. South Africa used the top - bottom approach to introduce the NCS and CAPS. Such curricula usually suffer ‘tissue rejection’.