Student evaluations of teaching and learning are playing an increasingly important role in the delivery of high-quality, student-centred education. Insights into student perceptions of their learning experience provide important information that can be used to inform course design and development. The majority of course evaluations take the form…

The purpose of this study is to explore the perception of subject advisers on curriculum change and delivery in secondary schools. The survey design which adopts quantitative research approach was used. Random sampling procedure is used to select b samples of 300 respondents in the study who are subject advisers. Questionnaires were administered…

Course outlines for science teachers, designed and developed at 6 universities, were critically analysed and compared with the guidelines for science education set out in the national policy framework known as the Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualifications (MRTEQ) to identify the characteristics of a competent science teacher.…

This article reports on an analysis undertaken in the field of African philosophies using selected conceptual tools from Maton's Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). In response to calls by South African students for 'decolonising' the Humanities curriculum, the practical purpose of the analysis was to generate theoretically-informed guidelines for…

Calls for a decolonized curriculum in South Africa are gaining momentum. Contrary to the school curriculum that privileges knowledge from a western perspective, indigenous knowledge systems appreciate and draw from local content and forms of knowing. A number of studies have expressed the value of indigenous knowledge systems, and the need for…

In many parts of the world, newly hired science teachers' practices are developing in a complex policy environment. However, little is known about how newly hired science teachers' practices are enacted throughout a cycle of instruction and how these practices can be influenced by macro-, meso-, and micro-policies. Knowing how policies impact…

The University of South Africa (UNISA) has recently redesigned its honors degree in Gender Studies. The course design team members have been mindful of three key factors while redesigning this degree. First, we are aligning our course design with the demands of open and distance learning (ODL) and UNISA's institutional move to online delivery of…

Over the past two decades, sexual citizenship has emerged as a new form of citizenship coupled with increased interest in the challenges to citizenship and social justice faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people and, in particular, by sexual minority youth within education systems. In South Africa, the rights of…

Comparative research on higher education in developing and transitional countries is often focused on such issues as access, finance, student mobility and the impact of globalization, but there has been little attention to curriculum and the forces that shape it. Confronting Challenges to the Liberal Arts Curriculum fills an important gap in the…

Evolution was introduced into the senior secondary school Life Sciences curriculum in South Africa for the first time in 2008. Research in other countries shows that evolution is an extremely controversial topic to teach, raising serious concerns for teachers. Curriculum change theory dealing with "stages of concern" suggests that…

Uses a South African university course on critical citizenship as case study of the challenges of interdisciplinary education. Shows how the process of identifying generic competencies across humanities disciplines may omit the necessary foundation for achieving those competencies. (SK)

This document contains two sets of lessons designed to teach elementary and secondary students about apartheid in South Africa. The goals of the lessons are: (1) to create a greater awareness of recent events related to the practice of apartheid by the South African government; (2) to provide a greater understanding of the effects of apartheid on…

Argues that college students are generally less dependent and more motivated to learn than is generally assumed, based on a survey of 252 third-year University of South Africa students. Recommends that academic departments find new ways of accommodating learner self-direction, re-examine traditional teaching paradigms, and continuously evaluate…

Thirteen half-hour television programs entitled "The Geography of Tourism" developed for use in Wilfrid Laurier University's (Canada) distance education program are discussed. Distance education embraces teaching, or communicating with, students who are not physically in the classroom with the instructor. The central theme of the series…

An experiment in English-as-a-Second-Language pedagogy in a South African university's teacher education program looked at the effects of students' participation in construction of the course syllabus. Results are discussed from three perspectives: learning theory; the culture of learning; and cognitive style. The metaphor of mental…