Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Capacity for (quality) instruction: a framework for understanding the use of resources to promote teaching and learning in schools |
Authors: | Jita, L.C. Mokhele, M.L. |
Year: | 2008 |
Periodical: | Africa Education Review (ISSN 1814-6627) |
Volume: | 5 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 253-273 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | primary education educational quality teaching methods |
External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/18146620802449498 |
Abstract: | South Africa recently introduced a new curriculum, designed to encourage the learning of conceptually demanding subject matter. While this new curriculum has provided the necessary impetus for change in some schools, others in the country continue to struggle in their attempts to provide quality instruction. This is more so for those schools that serve the historically disadvantaged, and especially so in subjects like Science and Mathematics. A pertinent question is why many schools in South Africa, and elsewhere, are unable to take full advantage of new curricula and policy support to improve their capacity to offer quality instruction? In this paper the authors develop the concept of capacity for instruction as a framework for understanding the mobilization and use of a variety of resources by schools to achieve their teaching and learning goals. They then apply the framework in a study of Hillview Primary School (a pseudonym) in the rural part of Mpumalanga province which has, over the past few years, struggled to sustain its capacity to offer quality instruction. Guided by an interpretive paradigm, they collected and analysed data from teacher interviews, classroom observations and document analysis, in order to understand how the 'deconstruction' or gradual loss of capacity to offer quality instruction, especially in Science and English, occurred at this school. They discuss the critical role of the students - as a resource - in the (de)construction of the school's capacity for instruction. Bibliogr., note, sum. [Journal abstract] |