When analysing the NCS and CAPS documents, it became apparent that the two documents are structured differently. The NCS is competency based because the focus is on what learners know and are able to do and it therefore appeared to be weakly framed between educators and learners, because learners seem to have more control in the classroom than the educator. The learning outcomes (LOs) and the assessment standards (ASs) focus on what the learners should be able to do grade by grade through assessment criteria (AC), while the educator’s role in the classroom is implicit. The NCS makes a lot of assumptions regarding educators. As a result, educators’ roles are implicitly implied in the LOs and ASs. These assumptions are explicitly specified in the NCS
122 documents in Chapter One under the subheading, ‘The kind of teacher that is envisaged’. In the document, it is assumed that educators are qualified, competent, dedicated and caring, and therefore can be relied upon to know what to do in class (DoE, 2003b:5). The NCS is therefore strongly framed between the educators and curriculum designers, because educators are expected to teach specific content (which is not explicitly specified) to ensure that LOs and ASs are achieved. Unfortunately, the reality in most South African schools did not, at the time of its implementation, match or meet curriculum assumptions and was thus challenging. Most South African educators were unable to identify the implied content to be taught.
As a remedy to that situation, the CAPS was incrementally introduced to the foundation phase and grade 10 in 2012, to be completed in 2014 (see Chapter One for details). The CAPS manifests as the total opposite of the NCS, as is outlined in Chapter Three. While the NCS is competency based, the CAPS is performance based (refer to Chapter Two for details). For example, in Life Sciences the NCS focuses more on application (64%) than on content (36%), whereas the CAPS flips that scenario to 70% content and 30% application (subject advisor One, 2014). In the NCS Business Studies the four core features of the subject are listed as LOs 1 to 4. In the CAPS, the very same four features are listed as the main topics with corresponding content. The main differences between the NCS and CAPS in BS are the names used for its core features and the fact that the CAPS also lists the corresponding content. In Engineering and Graphic Design, the NCS has four LOs for EGD learners in grades 10 to 12. For Engineering and Graphic Design, the CAPS lists fourteen main topics for grades 10 to 12. It further specifies examinable content grade by grade.
In section one of the CAPS document, under the heading ‘General aims of the South African Curriculum’, it states that the CAPS expresses “the knowledge, skills and values worth learning in South African schools” (DBE, 2011a:4). This focus differs from the NCS in that it aims at laying the foundation for the achievement of the South African constitutional goals, mainly social justice (DoE, 2003a). The NCS focuses more on affirming learners in order to build their confidence, thus enabling them to participate in the democratic South Africa. In other words, the disciplinary knowledge combination is not that important, as long as learners are able to function well in society. The CAPS expresses specifically the knowledge to be learnt, and is therefore seen as content driven and performance based because learners have to learn specific content. The CAPS
123 assessment tasks have to be varied and continuous so that knowledge gaps can be identified. The opposite is true for the NCS, where assessment is done for affirmation purposes, that is, to see what the learner knows instead of what he/she does not know.
In the CAPS, educators are explicitly told what, how and when to teach and assess learners. Again, the assumption here is that educators are subject specialists; therefore they should know the subject content and be able to teach it. Unfortunately, this study revealed that this assumption is not correct, because 25% of the LS educators who participated are unqualified (did not know the content) and they were unable to teach the prescribed content. The sample of BS educators mainly read from the books and explained what was written in vernacular languages. In EGD, 50% of the educators simply monitored what the learners were drawing, while the other 50% demonstrated how a particular drawing was constructed step by step without any theoretical background.
The CAPS seems to go back to the blueprint kind of curriculum (performance model), explicitly specifying the content to be taught within stipulated time frames and how it should be assessed (DBE, 2011a:4). However, the CAPS does have similar features to the old curriculum, which were explained, by Hoadley and Jansen (2009:173), as that it is content led and designed by experts rather than all stakeholders. Subjects from grade R to grade 12 are called subjects rather than learning areas. Power and control appears to be back in the hands of the subject discipline expert curriculum designers. Educators are told what to teach, when, and how to teach and assess, that is, if they follow the curriculum statement as is, without interpreting it. To use Bernstein’s concepts, the CAPS are strongly classified and framed.