Opportunities and Challenges for Teacher Education Curriculum in South Africa potx

Table 1.1 A comparison of IPET enrolments at the five cases: 2007 6 Table 1.2 Total enrolment in IPET across the remainder of the system: 2007 7Table 1.3 HEQC accreditation of ACE, BEd a

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Tables and figures iv

Table 1.1 A comparison of IPET enrolments at the five cases: 2007 6

Table 1.2 Total enrolment in IPET across the remainder of the system: 2007 7Table 1.3 HEQC accreditation of ACE, BEd and PGCE programmes 8

Table 2.1 Curriculum restructuring in teacher education: 1994–2007 28

Table 3.1 IPET student numbers at Mafikeng campus: 2005–2007 33

Table 3.2 IPET student numbers at Potchefstroom campus: 2005–2007 35

Table 5.1 Student numbers in education at UZ: 2000–2005 83

Table 5.2 UZ Education Faculty structure 91

Table 5.3 UZ Education Faculty research output, measured in South African

post-secondary education (SAPSE) units 99Table 6.1 CPUT academic staff complement by position and campus: 2008 110Table 6.2 IPET programme enrolments at CPUT by campus, race and gender:

2007 111Table 6.3 Assessment and weightings: mathematics and specific subject didactics 118

The Teacher Education in South Africa series is produced as part of the Teacher

Education Programme (TEP), funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the

Netherlands from 2005 to 2008

The programme took place at a critical juncture in the development of teacher

education in post-apartheid South Africa Since 2004, sustained attention has been

given to the improvement of teacher education consequent on the revision of the

curriculum and the restructuring of higher education In October 2004, the Council

on Higher Education (CHE) initiated a review of teacher education programmes On

26 April 2007, a National Policy Framework for Teacher Education and Development

was gazetted This provided the basis for a new system of teacher education and

development for a new generation of South African teachers

The TEP emerged within this overall context of enhanced attention being given

to the improvement of teacher education Its overall goal was ‘to contribute to

the knowledge and information base for policy formulation and implementation

regarding the organisation and practice of teacher education, with a particular

emphasis on initial teacher education (both pre-service and upgrading), as well as the

professional development of school leaders and managers’ (CEA, CEPD, EFT, HSRC

& SAIDE 2005) The work was organised under four major themes: teacher supply

and demand; institutional culture and governance; the development of education

management; and literacy and teacher development

The programme was designed by a consortium of agencies with considerable

expertise and experience in the field: the Centre for Education Policy Development

(CEPD); the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC); the South African Institute

for Distance Education (SAIDE); the Centre for Evaluation and Assessment (CEA)

at the University of Pretoria; and the Education Foundation Trust (EFT).1 The TEP

was developed in consultation with stakeholders such as the national Department of

Education, the Ministerial Working Group on Teacher Education, the Deans’ Forum

and the Council on Higher Education/HEQC, among others Briefing and consultation

continued through the process of research, for the consortium as a whole and in

relation to specific projects

This is the second of two monographs on the work of a project defined under

the theme of institutional culture and governance The project aimed to explore,

empirically and conceptually, the impact of two interrelated moments in specific

public higher education settings across the provinces:

• What are the conditions for and the nature of approaches to teacher education

created within specific public higher education institutions, as the outcome of complex forms of institutional restructuring since 1995?

• What are the resultant forms of curriculum restructuring, and how do they

impact on the preparation of future educators?

1 The EFT has been disbanded, and uncompleted projects have been taken over by the consortium.

The project was operationalised in sequential components Component One

comprised a set of literature, conceptual, contextual and empirical overviews, to lay the foundation for the study Component Two focused on the history of the restructuring of teacher education institutions and examined, through a set of 11 case studies, the nature, forms and impact of distinct college incorporation, higher education restructuring and merger processes on the institutional conditions and base for teacher education in universities and technikons Case-study site visits were conducted between February and April 2006

Returning to five of the same sites a year or more later, Component Three built on this analysis by conducting in-depth case studies of curriculum restructuring in the education schools and faculties of each institution

The present monograph reports on the study conducted to address the second aim,

on curriculum restructuring in the new configurations Both monographs are usefully complemented by reports from the other consortium research projects, particularly under the themes of supply and demand of teachers, and of the design and delivery

of initial teacher education programmes

Michael Cosser, HSRC Organisational Manager, Teacher Education Programme

Glenda Kruss, Project Leader

This study would not have been possible without the active participation of the team

of insightful and rigorous researchers who have committed themselves to the project

over the past three years It has been a privilege and a pleasure to work with all of

them

Nor would it have been possible without the ongoing support and willing

participation of the managers and academics of the five teacher education faculties

and schools, at times under extremely vexing circumstances To the deans, senior

managers and academics in education at Cape Peninsula University of Technology,

North West University, University of South Africa, University of Witwatersrand and

University of Zululand who opened their daily practice to scrutiny, I give grateful

acknowledgement of their contribution to research on teacher education

On the production side, there are those who have contributed to the final product

The manuscript has been reviewed by Linda Chisholm of HSRC, Tessa Welch of

SAIDE and Jonathan Jansen Their comments and suggestions have helped to create a

more nuanced argument and product, in order to open up the debate

At the HSRC Press, Inga Norenius has been a wonderful editorial project manager

and Lisa Compton has been a meticulous and patient copy editor

I am grateful to the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands for the funding

which afforded the opportunity to conduct this research

ACE Advanced Certificate in Education

AELS Applied English Language Studies

BEd Bachelor of Education

C2005 Curriculum 2005

CHE Council on Higher Education

CNE Christian National Education

COTEP Committee on Teacher Education Policy

CPTD continuing professional teacher development

CPUT Cape Peninsula University of Technology

DoE Department of Education

DoL Department of Labour

ECD early childhood development

EFT Education Foundation Trust

FET Further Education and Training

FP Foundation Phase

GET General Education and Training

HDE Higher Diploma in Education

HEDCOM Heads of Education Departments Committee

HEQC Higher Education Quality Committee

HEQF Higher Education Qualifications Framework

IP Intermediate Phase

IPET initial professional education of teachers

JCE Johannesburg College of Education

MCTE Ministerial Committee on Teacher Education

MEd Master of Education

NCHE National Commission on Higher Education

NCS National Curriculum Statement

NPDE National Professional Diploma in Education

NPFTED National Policy Framework for Teacher Education and DevelopmentNQF National Qualifications Framework

NSE Norms and Standards for Educators

NWU North West University

OBE outcomes-based education

PGCE Postgraduate Certificate in Education

SAQA South African Qualifications Authority

SP Senior Phase

UCT University of Cape Town

UNISA University of South Africa

UZ University of Zululand

Wits University of the Witwatersrand

WSoE Wits School of Education

Glenda Kruss

Any contemporary analysis of development and growth prospects in South Africa

quickly moves to highlight the low levels of education and the shortage of critical

skills among the population – which in turn shifts the focus to the poor quality of

the schooling system Analysts and activists ponder why it has not been possible

to transform more substantially the legacy of the apartheid schooling system

Explanations are sought and strategies have been initiated in relation to unequal

financing and resourcing, the nature of school leadership and administration, the

controversial change to an outcomes-based curriculum and the quality of teachers

However, there has not been enough sustained focus on the pivotal role of the

teacher education system that produces South Africa’s future teachers

After 1994, the recommendations of the National Teacher Education Audit (Hofmeyr

& Hall 1995) initiated a process to enhance the ability of the teacher education

system to produce quality teachers who can produce quality students – that is,

students who can become well-educated citizens able to participate actively in a

democratic society and in the modern globalised economy Over a 10-year period,

the teacher education landscape was transformed significantly As each new policy

shift occurred, there has been analysis of the proposed change and its likely

implications, but to date there has been little systematic, longitudinal reflection on the

impact on individual institutions and the system as a whole over the past decade

Such was the impetus for the initiation of a research project to investigate the nature

of institutional restructuring, and the impact of change on the ability of the teacher

education system to produce the kinds of teachers required (Kruss 2008) This

monograph contributes to that research agenda, focusing on shifts in the official and

espoused curricula of initial professional education of teachers (IPET) programmes –

the Bachelor of Education (BEd) and the Postgraduate Certificate in Education

(PGCE) qualifications – at institutional level in the context of national institutional

and curriculum restructuring It aims to delineate the conditions of possibility and

constraint for the development of future teachers – the opportunities and challenges

faced by teacher educators in diverse university contexts

Curriculum restructuring in diverse institutional contexts

The research project drew on and extended research on systemic change in teacher

education begun in the late 1990s by scholars such as Jansen (2002, 2004) and Lewin,

Samuel and Sayed (2003), among others (Mfusi 2004; Sehoole 2005) It attempted

a broad systemic sweep of the complex interplay between dynamics at the macro-,

meso- and micro-levels: the interaction between national policy, institutional strategies

and education faculties or schools with their academics The premise was that in

order to understand the potential of the emerging new teacher education system,

we need to research the ways in which distinct universities are changing, shaped

by institutional micro-politics in complex forms of interaction with government

frameworks and actions

The first set of case studies we conducted in 2006 was extremely ambitious and wide-ranging in its focus on the macro-, meso- and micro-levels simultaneously In effect, the analysis provided the basis for the construction of an institutional history

of teacher education over the last 10 years (Kruss 2008) The case studies covered internal and external trajectories of institutional restructuring in diverse university contexts and began to elaborate the impact on IPET programmes in terms of

organisational shifts, staff and student shifts, and programme and curriculum shifts The longitudinal multiple comparative case-study design of the research meant that specific trends and dynamics in 11 of the 22 universities that offer teacher education could be aggregated with confidence to illuminate conditions of possibility and constraint across the national teacher education system

The initial intention was that on this basis we would investigate emerging new institutional cultures and the ways in which they impact on future teachers While the challenge of merging unequal partners had been reported on in the international literature to a limited extent (Harman 2002), in the South African research literature there had not yet been a study of the challenges of institutional cultures that emerge out of externally mandated mergers, particularly where the merged institutions are very diverse in their missions (such as the merger of a university and technikon,

as at the University of South Africa (UNISA)), or culturally uncomplementary (as in the merger of Potchefstroom and North-West at North West University (NWU)) or unequal in status (as in the merger of a university and college, as at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT)) However, a study of institutional culture as intended proved implausible when the time came to begin research in 2007, for a combination of pragmatic, conceptual and methodological reasons

The study of institutional cultures in South African higher education is not yet

advanced and is conceptually relatively limited The focus has tended to be on the ‘fit’ between an institution’s historical identity, tradition and culture, and those

of a shifting student population, with the emphasis on student access and success (Barnes 2005; Cross 2004; Erasmus 2006; McKinney 2004; Steyn & Van Zyl 2000; Thaver 2006; Van Zyl, Steyn & Orr 2003; Walker 2005) The purpose of our study was different Ideally, we wanted to focus on how academic teacher educators were shifting their identities as they became located in new institutions that were created

by external mandate of government policy, how these dynamics were informing their curricula and approaches towards their roles as teacher educators, and how the conditions for teacher education were shifting as a result.2 What are the conditions for initial teacher education in an institutional context characterised by potentially conflicting values and identities, and shaped by former old and emerging new institutional cultures, that have to be managed to create a synergy of purpose?

In 2007, we found that South African universities were too close to the point of grappling with the demands of merger implementation for substantial change in identifiable institutional cultures to be discernible and ‘researchable’ We felt that

it was premature to study emerging new institutional cultures, given the typical

definition of institutional culture as deep-rooted or historically transmitted sets of

values and assumptions (Harman 2002; Van Zyl, Steyn & Orr 2003) We thus sought

2 Trowler (1998) has conducted research along these lines on academic responses to a new national policy framework

in higher education in the United Kingdom.

an alternative empirical ‘hook’ that could illuminate the shifts that were taking place

and their implications for the teacher education system

The ideal ‘hook’, we realised, was the processes of curriculum restructuring unfolding

in universities with diverse trajectories of institutional change over the past decade

We knew that both the old configurations and the newly created universities have

engaged with successive shifts in government curriculum policy frameworks since

1994, as have academics with distinct institutional legacies We could explore how

conditions for initial teacher education are changing by investigating how faculties

and schools of education are recurriculating, and the ways in which individual

academics are changing their curricula and models of teacher education, in a range

of institutional contexts

Such a study requires teacher educators to reflect on their current assumptions

and practice, how these are changing with national and institutional restructuring

processes, how teacher educators would ideally like to see curriculum changing,

and in what ways their position in a restructured university shapes their curriculum

assumptions These academic and curricula positions are difficult to investigate and

to analyse, as they are often implicit or tacit for individuals They tend to be very

‘messy’ and assumed, and are linked with historically transmitted sets of values

Extremely sensitive interpretation on the part of researchers is required, as well as a

carefully thought-out research design

Typically, investigating such dynamics requires extensive periods of in-depth

ethnographic work on a micro-level Such research can yield substantial, rich and

qualitative insights Although education research in South Africa does tend to employ

ethnographic methodologies and generally focuses on only one or maybe two cases

in detail and depth (Parker & Deacon 2006), Jansen (2006) has been critical of the

fact that South African curriculum research often lacks sufficient ethnographic depth

that is made possible only by a combination of a range of data sets: observational

evidence, interview evidence, institutional and policy documentation, placement

data and self-reports Ethnographic in-depth curriculum research such as Jansen

recommends is extremely expensive When multiple cases are selected and

heterogeneous national coverage is required for variation, the scale of resources

required to conduct research becomes unfeasible A team of competent skilled

researchers would need to spend months at each institution, and the financial costs

become exorbitant

While such studies are clearly important and need to be done, we wanted to remain

consistent with the objective of the study – to analyse systemic impact – and do

something that was financially feasible and unusual methodologically Multiple

comparative qualitative studies are unusual in South African teacher education

research Hence, the decision was to continue to adopt a multiple comparative

case-study methodology to case-study curriculum change processes (Schofield 1993) In such

a design, to enhance the degree of ‘fit’ between the cases and the general situation,

heterogeneity and variation is critical

We made a trade-off between what would be ideal as a research focus and

methodology and what was possible in the present conditions and with the resources

available The principle of a wide scale of varied institutional coverage shaped the

design, rather than in-depth analysis of a single institution Five of the 11 cases that

were exemplars of the main institutional restructuring trends across the system were selected for comparative follow-up study in 2007.3

We propose that what is sacrificed in terms of depth of analysis and detail of

individual cases is compensated for by the breadth of insight the study can provide across the system of the conditions of possibility for teacher education In this way, the research project can lay the basis for future in-depth micro-level institutional studies of the transitions out of the teacher education system – of enacted curriculum, and of the new teachers actually produced by the system

So, those readers looking for a definitive analysis of teacher education curriculum change in South Africa will be disappointed What the reader will find is an analysis

of the dynamics and processes of recurriculation in five universities with different trajectories of institutional restructuring, selected as exemplars, in order to inform policy and practice The study aimed to identify broad patterns, contours and

trajectories across the system, for the purpose of illuminating the potential and the constraints for teacher educators and to open up debate around strengthening the base for initial teacher education in South African universities

The comparative multi-site case-study design

This section describes the longitudinal comparative case-study design followed in each case, in order to avoid a repetitive elaboration at the beginning of each of the chapters of institutional analysis that follow The case studies were guided by six research questions:

1 What are the main features and emphases of the content and form of current initial teacher education curricula?

2 What are the main changes in the content and form of curricula since 2000?

3 What processes of recurriculation of initial teacher education have taken place since 2000?

4 How are individuals and groups of academics positioned in relation to

participating in and driving recurriculation processes?

5 What are the main issues of contestation or synergy around curriculum

restructuring?

6 What are the main drivers of recurriculation at macro-, meso- and micro-levels?

Focus of case studies

The focus of the 2007 case studies was on the processes of curriculum restructuring that had taken place in the BEd and/or the PGCE programmes in their various

permutations

A key proviso when reading the case studies is to note that because of the research

focus and design decisions, they do not analyse curriculum practice in any way

Morrow, Samuels and Jiya (2004: 25) have popularised a South African version of the typical distinction between intended, implemented and attained curricula (see, for example, Leyendecker 2005):

3 There are patterns of similarity between some of the 11 cases, and it was extremely unwieldy to work comparatively with the amount of qualitative data generated It was decided that a smaller number of cases could serve the purpose of highlighting trends across the system just as well.

• official stated formal curriculum (the university syllabus and curriculum

descriptions);

• espoused curriculum (what teacher educators claim they teach);

• the experienced curriculum (what future teachers in the programme experience)

The case studies explored only two of these understandings of curriculum – the

formal and the espoused It was not possible to explore the enacted or experienced

curriculum within the bounds of the study, as explained above The aim of the

design for this project was thus to analyse how restructuring has impacted on official

stated curriculum as reflected in faculty and course documentation, and how it has

shaped the espoused curriculum – what teacher educators claim they teach.

In order to access the official stated curriculum, the case studies relied primarily on

institutional documentary sources, complemented by interviews with senior university

and faculty or school managers In order to access the espoused curriculum, the case

studies relied on in-depth interviews with academics, complemented by documentary

analysis of selected course material

Selection of cases

Three broad patterns were observed in relation to the impact of individual

institutional trajectories: whether institutional restructuring had, and is likely to have,

a very minimal impact, a ‘medium’ indirect impact or a strong direct impact on IPET

programmes and curricula To ensure heterogeneity, one case each was selected from

those in which institutional restructuring is likely to have minimal or some indirect

impact, and three that are likely to experience strong direct impact on curriculum

restructuring processes, as follows:

• University of Zululand (UZ) is a historically disadvantaged university that has

experienced little internal restructuring, a college incorporation that made little impact, and no mergers, but it has been reconstituted as a comprehensive university to serve a large rural community

• University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) has not undergone merger at the

institutional level, but it faces considerable transformation challenges The Wits School of Education (WSoE) faces challenges shaped by the initial ‘protected enclosure’ form of incorporation of a strong college Significantly, it is one of the few schools to have explicitly initiated a process of internal restructuring to facilitate integration in a strategic manner

• Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) is dealing with the complex

integration of multiple partners, as the result of complex, (formally) partnership forms of college incorporation and merger; merging academics and institutions with distinctly different ethos, ideologies and histories; and grappling with its new identity as a ‘university of technology’

equal-• North West University (NWU) is dealing with the complex integration of multiple

partners Two main campuses – each of which experienced protected enclosure

of colleges – with distinctly contrasting and unequal cultures, identities and ideologies are attempting to find ways to work together

The cases in comparative context: enrolment

The cases were selected as exemplars of the teacher education system as a whole Here, we provide further data that allow the reader to assess the typicality of each case relative to each other and to the system as a whole, in terms of the centrality

of IPET to its operations and in terms of an evaluation of the quality of its IPET programmes

Relative to one another, the largest provider of IPET is UNISA and the smallest is Wits (Table 1.1), although Wits is not the smallest in the system as a whole (Table 1.2) The large IPET enrolment at UZ relative to the other selected institutions and to the total system is marked, and underpins the faculty’s significance within the university

Table 1.1 A comparison of IPET enrolments at the five cases: 2007

A general trend is that across the five institutions, the BEd enrolments are far larger than the PGCE Except for UNISA, the PGCE numbers tend to be low, less than 100

in some cases, indicating that the BEd has become the preferred route for pre-service teacher education

At NWU, the Mafikeng campus has a tiny BEd enrolment relative to the large

Potchefstroom campus (and in proportion to its own PGCE enrolment) There has been a steady decline in BEd enrolments since 2005, when enrolment stood at

231 The role of Mafikeng staff in recurriculation processes needs to be read in this context

The IPET enrolment data for CPUT illustrate the complementary focus of each of the three campuses, in that only Bellville offers the BEd FET (Further Education and Training), while the PGCE is offered only at Mowbray The largest BEd enrolment

is at the Wellington campus – again, an important contextual fact with which to interpret the role of staff in recurriculation processes

Table 1.2 Total enrolment in IPET across the remainder of the system: 2007

Source: Data supplied by universities to Professor W Morrow, MCTE.

The cases in comparative context: HEQC accreditation

Our case studies did not purport to evaluate the quality of programmes, but rather

the conditions within which they operate and the organisational and academic

dynamics that shape them

The accreditation decisions of the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC)

National Review of the ACE (Advanced Certificate in Education), BEd and PGCE

programmes undertaken in 2006–07 were released publicly in early 2008, after the

period of our fieldwork and after the case-study reports had been drafted, and help

to situate the cases in relation to one another and in terms of their ‘fit’ with the

system overall (see Table 1.3)

The only university in our study that received an unqualified affirmation of the

quality of its teacher education programmes is Wits Nationally, ‘full accreditation’ was

granted to 12 ACE, 6 BEd and 7 PGCE programmes

Table 1.3 HEQC accreditation of ACE, BEd and PGCE programmes

Literacy), Mowbray

Decision: Accreditation with conditions

BEd (Foundation Phase),Wellington campus

Decision: Accreditationwith conditions

PGCE (FET), Mowbray

Decision: Accreditationwith conditions:

programme on noticefor withdrawal ofaccreditation

Management), Potchefstroom andWindhoek, Namibia

Decision: No accreditation

ACE (ScienceEducation, FET),Potchefstroom

Decision: Full accreditationACE (Mathematics/Science Education), Mafikeng

Decision: Full accreditation

FET), Potchefstroom

Decision: Accreditationwith conditions

Education), Pretoria

Decision: Full accreditation

BEd (ECD: Foundation),Pretoria

Decision: Accreditationwith conditions

PGCE (Senior and FET),Pretoria

Decision: Accreditationwith conditions

Special EducationalNeeds), Parktown

Decision: Full accreditation

Phase), Parktown

Decision: Fullaccreditation

Science Education,GET and Senior),KwaDlangezwa

Decision: Accreditation with conditions

BEd (Foundation/

Intermediate)

Decision: Accreditationwith conditions:

programme on notice for withdrawal of

accreditation

PGCE (FET Full-time/Part-time/Learnership),KwaDlangezwa

Decision: Accreditationwith conditions:

programme on notice for withdrawal of

2 ACE, 4 BEd and 5 PGCE programmes received the evaluation of ‘programme on notice for withdrawal of accreditation’

UNISA’s BEd and PGCE programmes received the potentially easier-to-address

evaluation of ‘accreditation with conditions’, where it is expected that weaknesses in

relation to some criteria can be addressed within a six-month period CPUT’s core

BEd Foundation Phase programme on the Wellington campus likewise has conditions

attached to its accreditation that can most probably be addressed satisfactorily in

the near future Nationally, 8 ACE, 5 BEd and 8 PGCE programmes received this

evaluation

The research process

This section describes the process of conducting the case studies at each of the five

universities, identifying factors that may have influenced the validity or reliability of

the qualitative data, in order to inform analysis and interpretation We document the

limitations of the research process, highlighting the general difficulties of conducting

such research in universities under present conditions

The five case studies were conducted between June and December 2007, with

varying periods of time spent at each university Researchers who were part of the

team conducting the institutional restructuring case studies in 2006 returned to the

same institution, facilitating access and ensuring a measure of familiarity for all

A snapshot in time of a complex process

The longitudinal design meant that it was possible to gain a sense of change over

time at each institution In relation to the specific focus on curriculum restructuring,

it was only possible to obtain a single snapshot of developments up to a specific

point in time This is an important feature of the study that needs to be borne in

mind when reading each of the chapters that follow Our research coincided with the

period in which universities were preparing for the HEQC National Review of teacher

education This meant that the case studies were conducted in a period of heightened

stress and insecurity that accompanied the prospect of public scrutiny by the review

teams and HEQC committees

Moreover, the snapshots were taken during site visits at a point when recurriculation

processes were newly initiated at institutional level For instance, at some universities a

BEd curriculum was redeveloped in 2006 and was in its first year of implementation in

2007 At others, recurriculation processes were initiated for the first time only in 2007

Thus the research captures processes of curriculum construction at an early point in

an institutional and qualification history In our process of verifying draft reports with

the institutions some months later, we gained a strong sense of extensive movement,

ongoing development and increasing confidence in the intervening period

This presents a limitation to the conclusions drawn from the case studies, in that the

processes were as yet incomplete and some of the processes were still opaque to

those interviewed

Interviews as a source of data on espoused curriculum

The case studies relied largely on perceptual data gathered through in-depth

interviews with academics and managers at each institution that required them to

reflect on their courses and teaching

The researchers were aware of just how difficult it is to give a definitive portrayal

of a teacher education curriculum based on what the lecturing staff claim about their modules and on the course outlines In trying to reflect the voices of teacher educators, we may have inadvertently created the impression that what is reported is anecdotal, rather than pithy expressions of strong trends

Each report triangulated the trends emerging from a wide spread of interviews with analysis of core curriculum documentation and such secondary sources as were available for that institution

Selection of interviewees

The process of interviewee selection aimed to ensure that the most representative possible set of reflections and views would be elicited The focus was on those academics based in initial teacher education departments, schools or divisions A list

of staff was obtained, and a sample of interviewees was constructed to represent a spread of academic staff as follows:

• a demographic spread of gender and race;

• a spread of senior and junior, long-serving and new staff;

• a spread of staff drawn from each of the previous institutional entities, in the case of incorporations and mergers;

• a spread of staff across subjects, disciplinary fields and phases

The eventual number of interviews conducted at each university depended on willingness and availability of academic staff It varied widely, ranging from 9 to

34, averaging around 20 A full list of the interviews conducted at each university

is included in Appendix A In the analysis the names of interviewees are kept

confidential, but there is a clear indication of their position in terms of seniority and disciplinary field, reflecting the representivity of the spread

Specific institutional processes

The only institution where the researchers experienced reluctance to participate

in the study was UNISA Here, we were the casualty of ‘research weariness’ –

and wariness – following the HEQC review process There was little institutional support for the interview process, and it proved difficult to gain access to a wide range of staff Of the nine interviews conducted at UNISA in 2007, four were with current programme managers or those who had been programme managers in the recent past Programme managers were tasked with coordinating a programme by,

inter alia, facilitating coherence of modules within a programme and facilitating programme changes Secondary analysis of five interviews conducted for the

first phase of the research in 2006 was also included in the analysis process for corroboration and clarification of data

The interviews at Wits were conducted during July and August 2007 These, together with information gained from interviews conducted in 2006, formed the core material for analysis At Wits, the sample comprised a cross-section of staff from the legacy College and legacy School, as well as lecturers appointed after the incorporation of the Johannesburg College of Education into Wits Both PGCE and BEd staff as well

as representatives of all the divisions that comprise the WSoE were interviewed Two Wits IPET lecturers based in other schools in the Faculty of Humanities at the university were also interviewed

At CPUT, interviews were conducted during September and October 2007

Representatives of the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences teaching staff on

each of the three CPUT campuses (Mowbray, Wellington and Bellville) were

interviewed These included some lecturers that had been members of staff of the

colleges before incorporation into Cape Technikon, as well as lecturers appointed

after the creation of CPUT

For NWU, the analysis relied primarily on interviews conducted at the Mafikeng and

Potchefstroom campuses in July and August 2007 The Vaal Triangle campus was not

included, because it had been a satellite campus of Potchefstroom since 1966 and

these campuses shared all courses and curricula In order to contain the boundaries

of the case study, only the dynamics between Potchefstroom and Mafikeng in the

merger and curriculum restructuring were considered Given that academics on these

two campuses were most central in the processes of restructuring and curriculum

construction, the analysis relied heavily on their accounts

Two visits were made to the UZ in July 2007.4 The timing was made difficult in part

by the teachers’ strike that ended in June and the resultant disruption of teacher

education programmes This coincided with the preparations for a new programme

of teaching practice, which took place during the month of August Because of

the difficulty in access, further interviews after the two site visits were conducted

telephonically Perhaps in part because of these disruptions, it was easier to access

senior management than academics at lecturer level Senior managers in the university

were willing to give of their time and to speak freely, at times off the record, on the

events and issues at stake In comparison, staff below the level of head of department

were more likely to avoid engagement, either by refusing to be interviewed or by not

keeping appointments A possible limitation is that the case study may be too strongly

influenced by the perception of senior managers

The method of recording interviews varied across each research site For instance, at

NWU, CPUT and Wits, detailed notes were taken during the course of the interviews

Some of the interviews at NWU and CPUT were tape-recorded, and parts of the tape

recordings were transcribed where necessary for direct quotations and the clarification

of field notes At UZ, all interviews were transcribed electronically at the time of

the interview, obviating the need for audio recording and later transcription The

researcher is confident that the transcripts are an accurate reflection of the interviews

that took place At UNISA, interviews were conducted jointly by the two researchers

and analysis of the data was developed jointly through debate and discussion Each

interview was recorded with a digital recorder, transcribed and analysed by means of

Atlas.ti

Document analysis

Each faculty or school was requested to grant access to its submission in preparation

for the HEQC review, whether in whole or in part The submission provided an

up-to-date and accurate account of current programmes, student enrolments and

staff – all critical contextual information Given sensitivities around the HEQC review,

this was misinterpreted in some cases in a negative light

4 On the first visit, the researcher was accompanied by Thabo Msibi, a young honours graduate who, it was intended,

would carry out interviews with members of staff This was not possible in the end, for practical reasons However, he

carried out two telephonic interviews before leaving for the United States as a Fulbright scholar He was also involved

in discussions on the interviews and provided a useful additional perspective

It was relatively easy to obtain official calendars and programme requirements to analyse the official stated curriculum at each institution Institutions differed in the extent to which they were willing to provide course outlines and study material that could be triangulated with the interviews in relation to the espoused curriculum Each case-study researcher conducted documentary analysis of course material, but analysis differed in the exact manner, focus and depth.

At UNISA, given its nature as a distance-education provider, selected study material was tracked and briefly compared from 2000 to the present for the purposes of triangulation The focus was tutorial letters, study guides and workbooks, as well as a teaching-practice module, and the emphasis was to determine the nature and degree

of change in relation to that reported by lecturers Material for the following courses was reviewed:

data sources available for the study were the university calendars (or yearbooks) from both Mafikeng and Potchefstroom campuses for 2005, 2006 and 2007 These calendars detailed the structure of the BEd programme, including a comprehensive listing of modules and learning outcomes The institutional plan (2007–09) was also considered, as well as a number of other institution-level policy documents, such as study guides, the vice-chancellor’s letters, examination papers and course outlines

At UZ, documentation was made available in the form of the faculty handbook, the university calendar, the faculty website (updated with information supplied by the faculty secretary) and course outlines for certain modules taught in the faculty The head of management information was extremely helpful in providing statistical information on the faculty Course outlines for the following core modules were reviewed:

of academic staff at the WSoE Information on the curriculum of all WSoE

programmes and courses was obtained from the institution’s website and from course outlines provided by many of the interviewees In addition, some interviewees

provided documents related to their teaching, such as a submission made for a chancellor’s team teacher’s award at the university, academic papers, and emails that provided background information on certain developments regarding curriculum transformation of IPET programmes and notes of discussions from staff curriculum

planning meetings Other data used in the analysis were obtained from academic

publications Documents relating to the development of a new format for teacher

experience for the BEd were extensively used, as was the institutional submission for

the HEQC review of the PGCE

CPUT provided a range of documents relating to teacher education programmes

as well as the university’s teaching and learning policy Course descriptions were

obtained from the university’s website In addition to information given during

interviews, many staff members generously provided course outlines A senior

manager provided the minutes of the curriculum committee meetings attended by

staff from the Mowbray and Wellington campuses

A wide range of documents was thus consulted, but, as is apparent, this was uneven

and largely dependent on the goodwill and openness of the interviewees at each

university

Consultation and interpretation

Draft case-study chapters were sent to the dean or head of each faculty or school,

with a request that they identify any significant errors, omissions or misinterpretations

prior to publication For the most part, this provided an opportunity for consultation

within the university and with the researchers involved

Typically, there were questions raised about the validity of the empirical data, with

concerns expressed that the university had progressed beyond the situation described,

or that there was not sufficient depth, or there were not sufficient interviews

conducted across the university There were queries around factual errors, some of

which proved unfounded, highlighting a lack of consistency in various documentary

sources within the university Others took trouble to point to the minutiae of

programmes and processes There were also positive responses in terms of the

reflection that had been stimulated by the research process and the report itself

The responses highlighted the difficulties of conducting research at universities in

South Africa at a time of heightened scrutiny There was evidence of defensiveness

and, particularly, that racial fault lines remain close to the surface in participants’

evaluations of the research conducted

The ethical responsibility to be sensitive to those who have collaborated and

supported research, opening up their own practice and perspectives, can be in

tension with the academic analysis of a faculty or school in relation to the teacher

education system of which it is a part What the reader needs to bear strongly in

mind is that the point was not to evaluate the performance of individual faculties

or schools, whether positively or negatively Rather, the intent was to use each case

study as an exemplar to illustrate trends and dynamics of curriculum restructuring

across the teacher education system in order to inform future policy and practice

The monograph

A team of researchers conducted the case studies, and each has had the opportunity

to contribute to this monograph, bringing his or her own conceptual lens to bear

Chapter 2 aims to situate the mediation of curriculum restructuring contextually It provides a periodisation of the drivers and processes of developing a new national curriculum policy framework for teacher education at the macro-level, and the new roles expected of teacher educators by the Norms and Standards for Educators (NSE) (DoE 2000a).

Chapters 3 to 7 present an analysis of the ways in which academics at each of

the five universities have mediated curriculum change, in the context of global knowledge shifts, increased state regulation, a qualifications policy vacuum and complex forms of institutional restructuring

Chapter 3 focuses on the complexities of recurriculation processes at the new North West University Ursula Hoadley argues that processes at the meso-level impacted

on the way in which the new BEd curriculum was constructed The two campuses persist in operating along parallel tracks and are likely to do so well into the future Drawing on the conceptual framework of Bernstein, Hoadley demonstrates how a centralised unit set up to assist with curriculum alignment across the newly merged institution led a highly bureaucratic process in mediating macro-level policy

In Chapter 4, Chaya Herman and Venitha Pillay consider curriculum change at the University of South Africa, using the concept of ‘ambivalences’ as a conceptual lens Herman and Pillay suggest that the highly controlled and regulated academic environment, change saturation and diffused leadership have resulted in a curriculum change process that is owned by no one, so that the regulatory role of the state gains ascendancy over the intellectual authority of academia

In Chapter 5, Crispin Hemson points to a sharp contradiction at the University of Zululand: while shifts in national policy were directly reflected in the structure of the IPET curriculum, the curriculum failed the key test of accountability to the national level, the HEQC review Hemson demonstrates how issues of internal and external accountability are interlinked, and that the lack of curricular debate points to a lack

of an internal vision and coherence for IPET Decisions were taken in terms of a prevailing ‘stakeholder culture’ in which diverse needs of staff and students are catered for, rather than an approach based on academic rationales

Chapter 6 considers the specific challenges faced by the former technikons that have merged to form the Cape Peninsula University of Technology Adele Gordon argues that two key factors have altered the working lives of CPUT teacher educators The first, the upgrading of IPET qualifications from a diploma to a degree, has meant that former technikon and college lecturers have had to develop course qualifications

to meet new policy requirements, without necessarily having the support or

academic depth to meet these demands A second factor relates to the alignment of complementary IPET programmes across three campuses, underpinned by different values that were rooted in the political views prevailing in the constituent institutions

in apartheid South Africa A great deal has been achieved in forging equivalence across complementary programmes, but the vision underpinning the different

programmes is less amenable to change, as it appears that the ethos of previous institutions still prevails

Chapter 7 analyses the case of the University of Witwatersrand, where a strong college and school merged and operated for some years along parallel tracks before

integration into a new school Adele Gordon argues that under strong leadership,

there is greater stability, borne out of the recognition embraced by a majority that

members of each institution can and do learn from each other Growing respect for

each other as educators, committed to a common vision, rather than suspicion and

derogation, is forging a more coherent ‘gaze’ on a vision of teaching through ongoing

reflection on current courses and programmes Despite the progress accruing from

the work of curriculum development committees, on delving into the inner processes

of curriculum restructuring in both IPET programmes, it became apparent that

divisions remain

Chapter 8 compares the dynamics of the five teacher education providers to inform

the analysis of curriculum design on a shifting institutional base in an evolving policy

landscape I argue that South African teacher educators are in a position where they

have potentially great opportunities but also face severe challenges The five case

studies demonstrate how multiple drivers intersect in complex ways to determine and

shape curriculum change at specific universities Universities have grappled primarily

with putting in place new formal programme and qualification structures The focus

has tended to be technical and bureaucratic, as opposed to engaging in substantial

curriculum development in line with the vision of the NSE and drawing on research

and academic disciplines Curriculum decisions tend to be taken based on personal

interests, authority and reputation, on academic ‘territorialism’ and on ensuring

institutional accreditation Hence, it is difficult to supersede curriculum legacies with

the new kind of framework proposed by the NSE The well-established espoused

curriculum, disciplinary commitments and academic identities of individuals continue

to determine design and development decisions

In general, the case studies demonstrate a dominant trend towards bureaucratic

compliance, but also show that this is not the only possible way to mediate

curriculum change There is potential for creating new knowledge in the system

driven by an academic logic and coherence, in an attempt to integrate the contrasting

legacy approaches of college and school academics and build on the strong academic

and research legacy of the university There is scope to build stronger interchange

around curriculum development specifically, between the expertise and experience of

university-based teacher educators, the HEQC with its oversight of quality issues, and

the national and provincial departments with their understandings of ‘policy images’

Curriculum restructuring in context:

1994 –2007

Glenda Kruss

Since the mid-1990s, university-based teacher education in South Africa has

undergone complex processes of state-mandated institutional restructuring

These external dynamics are intertwined with the processes of internally driven

restructuring, as higher education systems globally respond to new imperatives

One of the most significant changes in line with global trends was to move teacher

education into the higher education sector, with curriculum decisions decentralised to

universities but strongly subject to centralised state regulation

The international experience is that universities generally have less control over the

nature and forms of teacher education, in favour of school-led and

government-led processes (Furlong 2005; Phillips & Furlong 2001; Sayed 2004) In South Africa,

however, university-based teacher educators now have increased opportunity and

responsibility Unlike the past, there is a new expectation that teacher educators will

be strong academics, conducting research and, at the same time, developing

research-led curricula to produce competent teachers capable of transforming the schooling

system in South Africa

As Parker and Adler (2005: 62) argue, within the new South African policy framework

teacher educators have the potential power to ‘redefine knowledge and practices for

teacher education and to re-insert disciplined and disciplinary inquiry into teacher

preparation programmes’ One indication that there is a new space for teacher

educators is inherent in the epistemological underpinnings of the new Norms and

Standards for Educators (NSE) policy framework The NSE defines roles, applied

competences and qualifications, and in so doing provides objectives and general

directions that academics should interpret and develop into new qualifications and

curricula designs

However, the ability of academic teacher educators to achieve this potential is

circumscribed by the challenges they face: to develop new programmes within a

rapidly restructuring institutional environment and shifting policy context Higher

education in South Africa is historically differentiated and unequal, which shapes

what is possible in the present for universities with distinct legacies Likewise,

academics based in institutions with varying experiences of institutional restructuring

are positioned differently to mediate new policy They face distinct challenges that

vary in form and intensity And it is apparent that the newly created institutions may

face specific challenges, as academics negotiate the potentially conflicting models and

approaches that inform their work

This chapter describes the shifting policy context within which universities are

mediating their new roles as teacher educators, highlighting government policy vision

and directions with which institutions are expected to engage at the macro-level

Drivers and dynamics at the macro-level

The impetus for the restructuring of initial professional education of teachers (IPET) programmes after 1994 has been driven strongly – but not solely – by macro-level processes We have described this as a ‘double dynamic’ of intersecting higher

education and education imperatives (Kruss 2008) Curriculum restructuring is shaped

by ‘local’ South African responses to global changes in conceptions of knowledge and the role of higher education This means that it is shaped simultaneously by the transformation imperatives of the national Department of Education (DoE) for a new schooling system It is impossible to separate out the impact of one set of imperatives, but it is useful to distinguish the key changes and dynamics in relation to each, which shape the complex conditions within which individual academics in specific universities will work

Such a periodisation of IPET curriculum restructuring relative to both shifting higher education and educational processes was developed as part of this research project The first period, from 1994 to 1999, was one in which teacher education responded

to internal restructuring dynamics within universities, more strongly shaped by

higher education financial imperatives and shifting conceptions of knowledge

generation The second period, from 2000 to 2003, was more strongly shaped by national educational transformation imperatives, with the incorporation of colleges

of education into the higher education system The third period, from 2004 to 2005, was again more strongly shaped by higher education dynamics, as teacher education academics were caught up in mergers and the creation of a new institutional

landscape In the fourth period, from 2006 to the present, teacher educators are grappling with the challenges of creating new institutional homes and consolidating the system In each of these periods, there are processes of policy formulation

and implementation purporting to drive change in higher education qualifications, programmes and curricula in general, and in relation to IPET specifically These will

be analysed briefly in the following sections, to situate the analyses of five specific universities in the chapters that follow It will become clear that any single university will have engaged cumulatively with multiple imperatives in distinct combinations over the past 10 years

Debating new higher education curriculum policy in South Africa: 1994 –1999

In the period from 1994 to 1999, curriculum change was primarily driven by the insertion of South Africa into the global community, and the need to develop new policy frameworks for a democratic future

Global higher education dynamics

Breier (2001) gives an excellent overview of curriculum restructuring in South African higher education in relation to global trends, which provides a kind of baseline of the situation in 1999 – before institutional restructuring across the higher education landscape began

In general, curriculum reform has lagged behind other policy changes in South Africa, particularly because of entrenched notions of academic and disciplinary autonomy However, the effects of globalisation, Breier argues, initiated international debate around the curriculum in relation to a number of cross-cutting themes which were of particular relevance in South Africa since the deliberations of the National Commission

on Higher Education (NCHE 1996) Internationally, academics were debating the

impact of globalisation, massification and internationalisation on the curriculum

Debates around the extent of responsiveness of the curriculum to the economy, the

wider society or local communities were vigorous globally, and increasingly in South

Africa (CHE 2002; Ensor 2001, 2002, 2004; Griesel 2004; Singh 2001) As Ogude,

Nel and Oosthuizen (2005: 1) phrase it, ‘In essence, higher education institutions

worldwide are being called upon to become more responsive to the needs of the

knowledge economy.’

An associated concern was the extent to which different forms of knowledge, such

as indigenous knowledge or knowledge produced in sites of application, should

be accommodated in the curriculum With the shift to a conception of ‘mode 2’

knowledge, there were debates about the extent to which the curriculum should

promote traditional disciplines or inter-disciplinarity or trans-disciplinarity (Jansen

2000; Kraak 2000) Other concerns were focused on the skills that graduates should

offer employers (Griesel 2002; Kruss 2002); the shifting relationships between

institutional autonomy, academic freedom and public accountability (CHE 2002;

Habib, Bentley & Morrow 2006; Jonathan 2007); and the ideal features of a quality

distance-education curriculum (Welch & Reed 2005)

Breier (2001) discusses local policy and institutional initiatives in relation to each

of these global themes and influences South African concerns are strongly shaped

by the national demand for equity and redress, and are in tension with the demand

for responsiveness, efficiency and effectiveness Two national initiatives impacted

strongly on curriculum restructuring in all disciplinary fields and at all levels The

first was the introduction of a National Qualifications Framework (NQF) in 1996 The

second was the shift to a programme-based approach to higher education funding,

which has led to the development of national and institutional planning systems

Research on higher education curriculum change in this period highlighted the

differential institutional capacity to respond to policy initiatives, associated strongly

with historical advantage (Breier 2001), and the discrepancy between national-level

prescriptions and implementation and practice within universities Breier concludes

that

there were indications that some universities had used the opportunities

of the NQF to change, quite substantially, the structure of their curricula,

as well as the process and pedagogy or to give attention to quality

Others had not got beyond the administrative procedures associated with qualification registration (Breier 2001: 37)

South African academics and universities in general were grappling with these

kinds of curriculum restructuring debates These fundamental concerns, related to

the changing nature of knowledge production and transmission, continue to shape

curriculum debates around teacher education As will become evident, they are

overlaid by the dynamics and challenges of institutional restructuring, and by the

specific dynamics of shifting initial teacher education policy that followed

The imperative to transform the national education system

Much has been written on the reform of the school curriculum in South Africa since

1996, when Curriculum 2005, popularly known as ‘C2005’, was introduced (Jansen

1998; Jansen & Christie 1999; Taylor & Vinjevold 1999) Harley and Wedekind

(2004: 197) have provided a succinct summary of the three design features of this

new school curriculum: that it was outcomes-based, that it proposed an integrated

knowledge system and that it promoted a learner-centred pedagogy.

The key point for our purposes is that teacher educators were now required to prepare teachers to implement a curriculum developed on epistemological and pedagogical principles that contrasted sharply with their own existing and accepted commitments and practice Whether their own approach was characterised by

a version of Fundamental Pedagogics, critical theory or social constructivism,

teacher educators were required to reform their programmes in line with the

NQF qualifications structure and to register qualifications with the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) They faced the challenge of addressing the features

of the new school curriculum in their own curricula and pedagogy

Aligning teacher education curricula

Significantly, teacher education after 1994 became a national rather than a provincial competence It became the prerogative of the minister of education to determine national policy and standards for the professional education of teachers, accreditation and curriculum frameworks

Guidance for the transformation of teacher education curricula came in the form of a national process from 1995 to develop the NSE (1996) to replace the old criteria (see Parker 2003 for elaboration) All public providers of teacher education were to revise their programmes, subject to the approval of the Committee on Teacher Education Policy (COTEP) and the Heads of Education Departments Committee (HEDCOM), in line with a national core curriculum (Cross 1998; Cross, Loots & Fourie 1998)

The process illustrates the complexity of alignment between national educational policy processes in general and teacher education policy specifically First COTEP produced a new norms and standards policy document, and the accompanying criteria for the recognition and evaluation of qualifications, in 1996 These were written in the language of ‘outcomes’ and were intended primarily to replace the diverse range of college curricula inherited from the apartheid dispensation Once the NQF itself was operational, by September 1997, the DoE, in collaboration with the Council of Education Ministers, HEDCOM and COTEP, decided to revise the 1996 documents in order to align them with the NQF (Parker et al 1997a, 1997b, 1998)

A new IPET policy framework: 2000 –2003

The NSE: setting parameters

The legal framework for qualifications and programmes leading to the employment

of teachers and the allocation of subsidy funding was set in place at this point The process culminated in February 2000 with a revised version of the NSE (DoE 2000a), supplemented by Criteria for Recognition and Evaluation of Qualifications for Employment in Education (DoE 2000b)

A four-year Bachelor of Education (BEd) qualification was introduced as the preferred IPET route, alongside the one-year Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) following a three-year degree Qualifications themselves were to be developed by standards-generating bodies (SGBs) and teacher education providers, subject to the new national processes for registration and accreditation set in place through SAQA, the DoE and the Council on Higher Education (CHE) Parker (2003: 15), who was centrally involved in the national processes, emphasises that the NSE was intended as

a flexible instrument that provides a basis for the generation of qualifications and learning programmes…The NSE do not provide specific criteria, but rather a general picture on the basis of which universities and other higher education providers can design their own programmes and qualifications.

This is a critical feature of the curriculum framework, one that created opportunity

and accorded great responsibility to teacher educators It meant that there was space

for multiple mediations and interpretations of the NSE ‘instrument’

The revised NSE adopted an outcomes-based approach centred on the notion of the

competent teacher, defining seven roles that a teacher should be able to perform

and the knowledge, skills and values that future teachers require in order to perform

these roles In addition, the NSE distinguished three interconnected kinds of ‘applied

competence’: practical, foundational and reflexive The ability to integrate the discrete

competences of each of the seven roles of educators was critical in the assessment

of future teachers An important point to note from the outset is the integrative

intent of the NSE; that is, teacher educators would interpret the roles as aspects of a

whole, rather than as seven individual functions that had to be taught and assessed

separately Moreover, each curriculum would emphasise the seven roles in different

ways, depending on the target student audience, the context, the phase of schooling

and the mode of delivery

An atomistic outcomes-based approach that interprets each of the seven roles

as discrete and as determining curriculum is not in line with the intended policy

approach The NSE emphasised that the purpose of the whole qualification should

inform its design, integrating the units and competences of which it is composed

In particular, foundational subject knowledge was emphasised as core and linked

strongly to academic disciplines, but could only be assessed as applied to the

integrated practice of teaching In essence, the new curriculum framework implied

that ‘institutions must ensure that teachers can teach and assess their subject content

adequately within the contexts in which they teach’ (Welch & Gultig 2002: 21)

As Welch and Gultig (2002) show, the revised NSE intended to align teacher

education frameworks with broader educational debates about outcomes and

competences, and with the new NQF However, the process of policy formulation

was dominated by a group of academics from two English-speaking, well-established

universities with a shared epistemological and conceptual framework – the University

of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and the University of Natal.5 Welch has suggested that

the effect of this was that the philosophical approach to outcomes-based education

(OBE) that underpins the NSE was rooted in the experience of certain institutions,

requiring little identity change for their academics.6 For instance, a study of the

uptake of the NSE by academics based at Wits and the University of Pretoria

conducted during 1999–2000 revealed that the Wits programme and approach was

already well aligned with the proposed NSE, while the University of Pretoria achieved

only partial integration of roles and of theory and practice In engaging with the NSE,

5 The NSE was developed by a team of academics under the leadership of Ben Parker of the University of Natal,

Pietermaritzburg, and included John Gultig (University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg), Michael Cross (University of the

Witwatersrand) and Sue Rees (Wits/JCE/National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa).

academics at the majority of institutions were required to undertake epistemological and pedagogical shifts of the magnitude of Kuhn’s ‘paradigm shift’ (Kuhn 1962) Another critical feature that needs to be borne in mind relates to the implementation

of the new NSE, which was gazetted in February 2000 A significant shift

required of each teacher education provider was the introduction of the new BEd qualification, which had not been offered in the past The schedule for the proposed implementation programme was extremely tight:

• Change the nomenclature of all existing qualifications by 30 June 2001

• From the 2002/03 financial year, only programmes registered on the NQF and accredited by the HEQC could be eligible for DoE subsidy funding

• Existing qualifications accredited by COTEP and HEDCOM and provisionally registered by SAQA could be offered until 30 June 2003, and pipeline students would be able to complete a qualification begun before this time

Essentially, teacher education institutions would be required to develop the new BEd programme within two years, for implementation in the 2002 academic year The result was a tension between complying rapidly with administrative requirements

on the one hand, and developing quality integrated programmes in line with a new (foreign) paradigm on the other hand

Recurriculation simultaneous with college incorporation

Simultaneously, a number of universities were mandated to incorporate colleges of education Sayed (2004: 256) provides a useful interpretation of the shift of teacher education to the higher education sector that goes beyond the common argument that it was solely motivated by cost-saving considerations, arguing that it

also signals a belief that what is required in teacher education in South Africa is a strong focus on ‘subject/learning area content knowledge’ and a research culture which universities rather than colleges are seen to provide

It can also be construed as an attempt to inject into the university sector a longer-term commitment to teacher provision, rather than the conventional one-year diploma

One result of the incorporation at macro-level was a new relationship between the providers of teacher education and the departments of education, and a split of responsibility for IPET and continuing professional teacher development (CPTD) programmes The new dispensation provided that provincial departments were to

be responsible for managing and funding CPTD programmes and skills-planning processes The national department would assume responsibility for IPET in terms of the structure and quality assurance of programmes and qualifications, and hence could plan the supply and demand of future teachers (Hindle 2003) The decentralisation and recentralisation of control over parts of the system, as it will become clear in the case studies, had many unintended consequences at the micro-level in terms of potentially contradictory priorities set by individual faculties or schools

We have seen how there were two main trajectories of college incorporation that impacted on curriculum processes at the micro-level (Kruss 2008) In the first,

colleges essentially ceased to operate, their staff were moved to provincial education departments, their resources and infrastructure were reallocated, and their students became ‘pipeline’ students at the university with government funding for a period of three years At the point when urgent attention was required to develop the new BEd

programmes, these university faculties and schools were diverted to focus on

short-term arrangements for pipeline students

In the second trajectory, colleges were incorporated in a form of ‘protected enclosure’

in the university, with the retention of staff and valuable property Here the impact

on curriculum became complex The programmes of some colleges provided the core

for developing the new BEd qualification in line with the NSE, allowing faculties and

schools to expand into new niches of provision Considerable attention was required

to put in place new management and administrative structures, and the personal

and professional stress for individual academics was high At the same time, future

funding for initial teacher education was contingent on the development of the new

four-year BEd programme, increasing the pressure

A degree of recurriculation in line with the NSE occurred in this period It is perhaps

not surprising that the evidence suggests that recurriculation primarily consisted

of repackaging existing programmes to comply formally with the nomenclature

and structure of the new qualifications In a few cases, recurriculation consisted of

processes to align the curricula of college lecturers with that of the university or

technikon This is as opposed to substantial academically driven engagement with

the creative challenges of the NSE, which required a new conceptual framework –

namely, a new commitment to a ‘competence-based’ way of thinking from most

teacher educators

In the context of the most substantial change to the teacher education systemic

landscape since 1910, the requirement for individual institutions and academics to

redevelop qualifications was greater than could be addressed in the short period

given for formal compliance with the NSE Most universities offered a one-year

PGCE qualification, which was their only starting point for developing a new

four-year qualification And most colleges, which for decades had been under provincial

and racialised departmental control, had little autonomy over curriculum There was

strong direct departmental control over curriculum development and assessment,

leading to perceptions that colleges were ‘glorified high schools’ Drawing on

interviews with teachers, Soudien (2003: 278) has vividly described college lecturers’

lack of autonomy over what they taught:

In the white college lecturers seldom ventured beyond the textbook, which was invariably written by an apologist for the apartheid system

When they did, they courted trouble and found themselves out of a job

A similar tyranny reigned in the homeland college, where lecturers who refused to conform were dismissed from their posts

At most of the universities, the existing curricula of most colleges provided little basis

for developing new programmes characterised by reflective practice and foundational

competence, but some colleges were able to bring critical expertise to bear

For teacher education, the key shift in this period was the decentralisation of control

and responsibility over curricula to the university, and the challenge to develop

curricula in terms of a theoretical and epistemological approach that was entirely new

to most teacher educators

Refining implementation in a shifting landscape: 2003 –2005

In the third period, national processes to understand the constraints on

implementation of new teacher education policy were initiated, but were complicated

by the review of the basic qualifications structure and by large-scale institutional mergers across the higher education system

New forms of regulation to enhance implementation

While there is decentralisation of direct responsibility for curriculum development to the university level, ‘state steering’ now takes the indirect form of setting regulatory frameworks and quality assurance Regulation and decision-making for teacher education has to be aligned and coordinated between multiple statutory bodies: the national and provincial education departments, the CHE, SAQA, the South

African Council on Educators, the Education Labour Relations Council, and the Education, Training and Development Practitioner (ETDP) Sectoral Education and Training Authority (SETA) Effective implementation of new curriculum frameworks depended on alignment between these multiple institutions with varying powers at different levels After a short period, Parker (2003: 12) argued that ‘the dispersion of responsibilities and division of authority has produced a decision-making gridlock exacerbated by a general lack of human resource capacity in the system’

To address this gridlock, a number of initiatives were instituted from 2003 Amid much contestation and heated debate, and given the stark evidence of a lack of transformation across the schooling system, a review of C2005 was undertaken to identify strategies for strengthening implementation (DoE 2000c, 2001a) A review

of the NQF was initiated in 2001 in response to contestation around the integration

of education and training, and in particular the integration of higher education into the NQF A consultative document was released in 2003, with proposals around standards and qualifications, quality assurance, governance and the architecture for implementation (DoE & DoL 2003) The general thrust of these reviews was to identify ways to simplify, streamline and enhance effective implementation and clarify the responsibilities and roles of the multiple regulatory agencies involved

A similar review of the national teacher education framework was initiated in the form of the Ministerial Committee on Teacher Education (MCTE), for two years from 2003 As the MCTE (DoE 2005: 2) explained, the purpose was not to replace the newly developed policies, but to identify barriers and develop an ‘overarching Framework that will enable us to use the policies already in place to develop a coherent teacher education system and to focus sharply on the decisive role of teacher education in the transformation of education’

The MCTE presented its final report to the minister of education in June 2005 The major recommendation was to distinguish between three complementary subsystems

in teacher education: IPET, CPTD and support systems for these The argument was that the IPET system was not sufficiently funded and that it was highly contested Funding was seen as a major constraint:

Many HEIs [higher education institutions] are now organised in terms

of ‘cost centres’ required to justify their continued existence in terms of income and expenditure In this climate, HEIs and Faculties of Education have a tendency to prioritise higher subsidy earning programmes, and IPET programmes tend to get sidelined (DoE 2005: 20)

The CPTD programme did not yet exist as a system; nor were support systems

coordinated or sufficiently focused The recommendations of the MCTE proposed to

improve these subsystems and contribute to a coherent and comprehensive system of

teacher education

Departmental response was slow and very delayed, partly because adoption of the

MCTE recommendations was interconnected with decisions on the proposed new

Higher Education Qualifications Framework (HEQF) (DoE 2004), which in turn

depended on the response to the review to improve the implementation of the NQF

Draft responses were circulated for comment (DoE & DoL 2003; DoE 2004, 2006),

but final frameworks were to be gazetted only during 2007 (Ministers of Education

and Labour 2007) A further reason for the delay was the lack of senior leadership in

teacher education in the DoE

Policy vacuum: a constraint on mergers

The national imperative to identify ways to implement national policy more

effectively impacted on universities that were undergoing externally mandated

mergers and incorporations from 2003 to 2005

The 2006 case studies revealed a number of trajectories and patterns of higher

education merger (Kruss 2008) In some cases, mergers took a simple form, in that

they were totally complementary or involved the partial incorporation of specific

campuses Other mergers were complex, involving multiple partners in successive

waves of restructuring Universities undergoing complex mergers varied in the extent

to which one or more parties dominated in a particular merger, leading to differing

degrees of synergy and contestation – in general, and around curriculum The impact

of institutional restructuring on curriculum processes was potentially very strong in

some universities, but impacted on all in diverse ways

The challenges of developing a new academic programme structure in merged

institutions was the first focus, in order to align and consolidate the programmes of

each party to the merger (DoE 2003; for case studies of the process, see Erasmus

2005; Mosia 2005; Naidoo 2005; Prinsloo 2005; Woodward 2005) For teacher

education faculties and schools specifically, there was considerable duplication

and overlap of programmes and qualifications offered, which required extensive

curriculum alignment and restructuring

The policy vacuum in effect acted as a constraint on teacher education providers

at university level Even where there was willingness to recurriculate, there was

reluctance to proceed to design new programmes until the publication of the new

National Policy Framework for Teacher Education and Development (NPFTED) Such

delays in national teacher education processes at the macro-level impacted negatively

on institutional mediation of curriculum change

Facing the challenges: 2006 –present

Since 2006, once governance and management structures were more firmly in place

in the new universities, attention began to shift to alignment of programmes and the

development of new curricula in general For teacher education, specific dedicated

initiatives began to fill the policy vacuum during 2006 and 2007 The first was the

HEQC’s initiation of a national review of teacher education programmes, and the

second was the eventual publication of the new NPFTED

Quality-assurance processes driving recurriculation

There is evidence to suggest that new regulatory processes of higher education quality assurance have been a spur to creating a common curriculum in some newly merged institutions

In 2004, amid similar concerns that drove the MCTE, the HEQC decided to initiate

a national review of the quality of professional and academic programmes in

education The decision was initially motivated by concerns about teacher education

in relation to its influence on the quality of schooling (HEQC 2004a: 3) Later briefing documents have included factors relating more specifically to higher education issues – in particular, recognition of the potential implications of higher education mergers and college incorporations into universities for quality, and concerns about the development of a new generation of education researchers through quality postgraduate programmes (HEQC 2004b, 2005, 2007)

Over a period of three years in succession, selected Master of Education (MEd), BEd, PGCE and Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) programmes at every public and private provider of teacher education were reviewed In a reflection on the process, HEQC employees Menon and Harley (2007: 9) conclude that ‘the picture was of units offering programmes being subject to, on the one hand, new higher education policy with new forms of regulation and accountability, and, on the other, policy vacuum’ Macro- and meso-management and reporting policies, rather than academic rationales, appeared to be driving curriculum development

We have stressed the demands on universities to face curriculum policy challenges

on a shifting institutional foundation, and the five case studies in this monograph will reiterate the specifics of such dynamics The case studies demonstrate starkly the ways in which quality-assurance processes began to drive recurriculation at some but not all universities Negative evaluation served as a spur for more intense collaboration By 2007, there was a great deal of stress and anxiety involved in preparation for the review of the BEd, PGCE and ACE programmes The unintended consequence in some cases was diversion of attention to the preparation of review documentation, rather than a focus on the substantive opportunities for curriculum development

A(nother) new qualifications structure

The NPFTED reiterated the core conception of the NSE, stating that ‘the notion of

“applied and integrated competence”, associated with the seven roles for teachers of

the Norms and Standards for Educators (2000), provides the basis for designing new

or revised teacher education programmes’ (DoE 2007c: 13)

At the time of the case-study research, there was still a great deal of flux and

uncertainty in the national qualifications structure for teacher education The NPFTED was gazetted in tandem with the HEQF in late 2007 (DoE, SAQA & CHE 2007) The most significant feature of the HEQF is that it ‘stretches’ the NQF levels for higher education, from levels 5 to 10, as opposed to 8 (DoE 2007b) All new qualifications will need to be aligned to the HEQF from 2009 The NPFTED (DoE 2007c) suggested that in line with the ‘nomenclature in the forthcoming HEQF’, in future there will be two pathways to prepare new teachers:

• an appropriate 360-credit Bachelor’s Degree, followed by a 120-credit Advanced

Diploma in Education (which will replace the PGCE, which replaced the Higher Diploma in Education (HDE))

In an echo of the complex alignment between the NSE (1996) and the NQF, once

again, with the HEQF and NPFTED now in place, the DoE will revise the NSE (2000)

and the criteria for qualifications to bring them in alignment with the shifts

Of note were indications in the NPFTED that the teacher professional qualifications

(ACE and the National Professional Diploma in Education (NPDE)) under provincial

control may be phased out and regulated more firmly These programmes have

grown rapidly in contrast to a decline in enrolments in initial teacher education, and

there has been debate about the ideal balance of emphasis on IPET and CPTD within

a faculty or school Such a shift may have implications for the existing prioritisation

of IPET and CPTD programmes within an institution, and for the relations between a

faculty and the university management, over the next few years

There is once again demand on teacher educators to interpret the new criteria

for qualifications and to realign their programmes The potential and space for

substantive, academically driven curriculum design may once again be diverted to

formal compliance with a new qualifications structure, before authentic engagement

may begin

Teaching practice increasingly at the heart of integrative practice

The NSE (2000) clearly proposed that teaching practice was to be at the heart of

the integrative core of the IPET programme A degree of school-based support was

mandated, leaving space for institutions to determine the precise form of teaching

practice equivalent to one year There was scope to decide what blocks of time

should be spent in schools, the role of supervisors or mentors, integration between

teaching practice and other courses, and so on In short, no specifics were stated and

there was insufficient clarity for practical implementation

A process of development and refinement oriented towards more school-based

experience and assessment criteria is evident through the HEQC and the NPFTED

The HEQC adopted minimum standards and criteria as agreed in a

stakeholder-defined process, and argued that ‘professional competence’ should be assessed

in ‘authentic settings’ and that there should be procedures for teachers to act

as co-assessors The NPFTED proposed a range of possible modes of teaching

experience, with the general agreement that it should account for 120 credits of the

BEd Structured mentorship programmes are to be encouraged but with the proviso

that there is suitable supervision and appropriate placements These policy statements

have sought to tighten requirements for practical implementation in line with the

philosophy articulated in the NSE, and the cases will reveal diverse institutional

mediations

A changing curriculum landscape

The NSE (2000) and the NPFTED (2007) provisions thus define the broad

qualifications and curriculum policy parameters within which institutions and

academics now create and negotiate new programmes and curricula

In concluding this section, it is useful to summarise the main drivers and features

of curriculum change in each of the four periods Table 2.1 attempts to do this in a visually simple manner, distinguishing between general higher education and specific IPET dynamics of curriculum change The apparent simplicity is misleading, as none

of these processes have proceeded automatically, nor do they follow one another in logical succession Nor is the process the same at any two universities, as the analysis will show One university may have initiated recurriculation processes in response to higher education debates, and then responded again in later periods to engage with the educational imperatives of the NSE Another university may only have initiated significant curriculum development processes following the HEQC review The periodisation thus provides a macro-level framework for analysing the experience of each university, as their managers, leaders and academics mediate, respond to and engage with the imperatives of change in complex ways

Table 2.1 Curriculum restructuring in teacher education: 1994 –2007

1 Debating new

higher education curriculum policy:

1994–1999

Curriculum restructuring driven

by national mediations of global trends – NQF compliance and programme-based funding

Programme and curriculum change within institutions may increasingly be driven by changing funding regimes and pressures (efficiency and financial viability concerns)

Curriculum change in response to introduction of OBE and C2005 at school level

2 A new

IPET policy framework:

2000–2003

Curriculum restructuring driven

by the NSE (1995 and 2000) and the Revised National Curriculum Statement for schools (2002) Seven roles for educators

increasingly become the

curriculum Overlaid with dynamics resulting from college incorporation, where the form

of incorporation was other than

‘institutional cessation’

3 Refining

implementation

in a shifting landscape:

2003–2005

Curriculum ‘alignment’ driven

by imperatives of highereducation institutional merger

Programme and curriculum change within new institutions driven by funding pressures

Emphasis on quality assurance:

Curriculum development driven

by HEQC National Review (given outcomes of 2005 MEd review).Qualifications revision and curriculum development facilitated

by NPFTED (2007) and the HEQF (2007)

A highly contested process at the meso- and micro-levels

A conception of curriculum change driven at multiple layers simultaneously can be

helpful in analysing the experience of individual universities and academics at the

meso- and micro-levels A single university may have initiated curriculum response

in any one of these periods, or in multiple combinations of these periods, primarily

in response to higher education or IPET imperatives Or, some institutions may have

initiated their own processes of recurriculation that are undermined by subsequent

demands for compliance with national directives and regulatory frameworks

In this section we briefly consider some of the common pressures shaping curriculum

processes at the meso-level of institutional dynamics and at the micro-level of faculty

or school dynamics

Financial pressures at the meso-level

At the meso-level, education faculties and schools face organisational challenges

arising primarily from the fact that the Classification of Education Subject Matter

(CESM) category of education is subsidised in the lowest funding group As a result,

the shift to new decentralised management and financial models within universities

mean that education is often at an institutional disadvantage, even where there might

be high numbers of students enrolled

There have been many appeals that the DoE subsidy funding allocation does not

recognise the specific demands of quality professional education for distinct school

phases and subjects, following the incorporation of teacher education within the

higher education sector The decision of the DoE was to retain the status quo until

2007/08, when the process of phasing in a new funding framework (initiated in

2004/05) would be complete (Ministry of Education 2006)

The 2006 case studies illustrated the range of institutional responses to the funding

pressures, from a focus on increasing postgraduate enrolments which attract a

higher level of subsidy, to a focus on attracting larger numbers of students to CPTD

programmes offered on satellite campuses or on a semi-distance basis All of these

have the unintended consequence of detracting resources and focus from initial teacher

education, particularly from the need for research-led, substantive recurriculation in

alignment with new qualification and policy frameworks (Kruss 2008)

Academic contestation at the micro-level

At the micro-level, curriculum restructuring within faculties and schools is by

definition a highly contested process Morrow (2003), for instance, stresses how

difficult it is to change curriculum – a project ‘likely to arouse conflict, passion,

anxiety and resistance’ He offers a number of reasons why this is so:

Any current curriculum embodies a set of intellectual habits and routines which have become comfortable for those who teach the curriculum

At a deeper psychological level, committed teachers’ self-images and professional identities and their fundamental convictions about the values

and standards of academic practice, are likely to be deeply embrangled [sic]

with the curriculum they teach To ask them to change the curriculum, in effect, is to ask them to develop a new professional identity and probably also, in their eyes, to fatally compromise their standards, and to abandon

their arduously acquired understandings of the disciplines they teach and the significance of their academic practice (2003: 4)

At departmental level, the demands of curriculum restructuring per se, internally driven and shaped by global and national policy processes, are immense in the context of relatively stable institutions The demands are even greater if curriculum restructuring is taking place on unstable organisational foundations in institutions newly emerged from complex, externally mandated restructuring And the demands are greater still where there is a regulatory expectation of compliance with national frameworks but a substantive policy vacuum

In this study, researchers stress the inherent difficulties in changing disciplinary identities and academic cultures, but the findings add a further dimension in that academics may bring with them, and continue to cling to, organisational and

institutional cultures of their ‘home’ institution Academics in IPET programmes in some of the cases may be challenged to recurriculate in an institutional context with which they themselves are not familiar and which is not organisationally stable Or

it may be that their new location offers them opportunities and positive academic challenges that were not possible in previous institutional locations Or groups

of academics with vastly different epistemologies, disciplinary backgrounds and pedagogies may be challenged to work together to claim the space to design new programmes

There is a need to explain what happens in the current South African context

when academics bring with them not only their own disciplinary allegiances and cultural characteristics but also different institutional identities and organisational and academic cultures The past institutional identities may sustain contesting points

of view and act as further impediments to curriculum restructuring at the level On the other hand, it may well be that curriculum restructuring is actually facilitated by merger in that the imperatives for restructuring are made explicit and old academic homes are destabilised Moreover, we cannot assume that academics bring with them from their former institutional locations competing or contradictory values, assumptions and beliefs that are cast in stone and continue to determine their actions over time, as new institutional and academic cultures begin to emerge Hence,

micro-it is important to examine the ways in which a faculty or school has put in place leadership, processes or mechanisms to manage integration and to facilitate synergy

in general, and around curriculum specifically

In the five chapters that follow, we attempt to illuminate such complex and ‘messy’ trends and dynamics of mediation at the micro-level of BEd and PGCE programmes in the five education faculties and schools In the final chapter, we attempt a comparative aggregation to illuminate trends across the teacher education system as a whole

A distant reality: aligning the BEd

curriculum at North West University

Ursula Hoadley

Introduction

This chapter reports on the restructuring of the Bachelor of Education (BEd)

qualification at North West University (NWU) The interest is in how the curriculum

was shaped by dynamics related to new national policies and regulations, complex

institutional change at the university and their mediation by academics who shaped

the curriculum in particular ways

In addressing the relationship between broader political processes, institutional

dynamics and the shape and content of curriculum, the chapter is divided into three

parts The first part of the chapter provides a brief history and description of how

education has come to be positioned in the institutional context at NWU The focus

is on the departments concerned with initial professional education of teachers (IPET)

within the faculties

The second part of the chapter describes the processes of restructuring the BEd

curriculum specifically at NWU The differential positioning of the campuses making

up NWU is considered, as is the macro-level policy and regulatory environment

The micro-level interests and groupings of individual academics within the different

faculties on the different campuses are also considered Dynamics at the institutional

(or meso-) level are identified as crucial in mediating macro-policy, as is the

particular relationship between the institution and the state

The third part of the chapter focuses on the BEd curriculum that has emerged

out of these processes of restructuring and recurriculation It considers both the

intended curriculum as read through institutional documents and the espoused

curriculum articulated in interviews with IPET lecturers The chapter concludes with

an integrative discussion that draws tentative connections between the dynamics

impacting on the recurriculation processes, especially institutional restructuring and

the kind of curriculum that emerges

The case study addressed the formal or intended curriculum and the espoused

curriculum (DoE 2004: 25) The limitation of not being able to ascertain what

happens in practice is significant However, Goodson (1991: 179) says of the intended

curriculum that it is a ‘supreme example of the invention of tradition’ It is only

the intended curriculum that has the chance to be interpreted and survive In other

words, ‘clear parameters to practice are socially constructed at the pre-active level’

(Goodson 1991: 180) It is these parameters, and how they were constituted, that are

Part I: The institutional context

The study follows on from an investigation into institutional restructuring at NWU

in 2006 (see Kruss 2008) The institutional context described here includes a brief summary of the 2006 study findings, to set the stage for the discussion of curriculum change that follows

North West University was formally established on 1 January 2004 through the merger

of two very different institutions One was a former ‘homeland’ university, the University

of Bophuthatswana, or UniBo, which had changed its name in 1996 to the University of the North-West The other was a former Afrikaans university, Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, which included Potchefstroom’s satellite campus,

Vaal Triangle, in Vanderbijl Park The process resulted in the creation of North West University, with more than 35 000 students and approximately 4 000 staff members on three campuses: Potchefstroom, Mafikeng and Vaal Triangle

The education faculties on the three campuses had previously incorporated other institutions Potchefstroom had incorporated Potchefstroom College of Education in

2001 Mankwe College of Education had been incorporated into the University of the North-West in 2001, and the Sebokeng campus of Vista University was incorporated into the Vaal campus in 2004 From the college incorporations, a substantial number

of college staff came into the education faculties They were concentrated in the departments of undergraduate studies The 2006 study reported on the tensions that existed between the former college staff and the university faculty staff, related to issues of research, teaching and how teacher education was conceptualised

The structure of the new university consisted of three campuses that were conceived

as ‘business units’ On each campus, a campus rector, vice-rector and registrar

were appointed The institutional management, with the approval of the national Department of Education (DoE), was located in Potchefstroom The two education faculties at Potchefstroom and Mafikeng were retained, and a dean was appointed at each Education at Vaal formed part of the Faculty of Humanities and was led by a head of department

There was a strong perception, especially from staff in Mafikeng but also confirmed

by several staff in Potchefstroom, that institutional power lay in Potchefstroom

The reason for this, from the Mafikeng perspective, had to do with the fact that Potchefstroom had vastly more resources and personpower Further, in the period leading up to the merger, the University of the North-West was in a precarious

position as a result of poor staffing and student unrest, whereas Potchefstroom was financially and politically stable What this meant was that when it came to producing new documents containing rules, protocols and procedures for the merger process, Potchefstroom staff were in a better position to produce these The perception from many in Mafikeng was a ‘Potchefication’ of their institution, where all directives, decisions and documents appeared to emanate from that campus

The 2006 study found that although many of the merger processes were complete, the different campuses largely operated on parallel tracks The geographical

distance between the campuses was a significant obstacle: it is 210 kilometres

from Potchefstroom to Mafikeng, approximately 70 kilometres from Potchefstroom

to the Vaal Triangle campus, and about 350 kilometres from Mafikeng to the Vaal