Curriculum transition in Germany and South Africa: 1990–2010

Abstract

At first sight, there is not much to compare, or any reason to compare, German and South African curricular frameworks. The history, nature of their respective transitions, level of development and educational legacies are very different. But the fall of the Berlin Wall and ending of apartheid brought both within a common neo-liberal global framework. A significant literature in comparative education points to increasing homogeneity in education systems and their curricula, while another points to how states and societies transfer, borrow, absorb or deflect such ideas in a manner that confirms difference and diversity, linked to historical specificity. The article probes these questions by comparing the history curriculum changes and their implications in both Germany and South Africa from 1990 to 2010 using a framework derived from Hayden White. It argues first that while the transitions in the 1990s were notably dissimilar, the international testing movement a decade later helped to precipitate common responses in the adoption and strengthening of standards in the early 2000s. However, despite this apparent convergence, the nature of standards developed differed substantially and these differences were linked to respective histories of history education in the transition. This article argues secondly that history curricula of both East and West Germany and a unified Germany had fully elaborated knowledge-focused curricula until the 2000s when competences were introduced. South Africa's 1997 curriculum did not build on past curricula, but its outcomes became hybridised artefacts before being abandoned in 2009 when the period of superficial convergence of form between the two countries came to an end. The article uses a combination of primary and secondary documents.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

Research for this article was supported by the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD) in 2013.

Notes on contributor

Linda Chisholm is a Professor based in the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation in the Education Faculty of the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Notes

1. Interviews drawn on for this article were conducted with: Rosie Borchert, parent of schoolchildren during the GDR period, Wellmitz, Brandenburg, 21 May 2013; Margot Jaehnisch, teacher and Direktor, Ernst Thälmannschule, Wellmitz, Brandenburg, 22 May 2013; Marianne Demmer, Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft (GEW – the largest teachers’ union), conducted at University of Hannover, 22 June 2013; Prof. Dr Ingo Juchler, University of Potsdam, 23 May 2013; Dr Louis Kriel, Department of Basic Education, Pretoria, 5 March 2014; Frau Viola Mauve-Hoennecke, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, Potsdam, Brandenburg, 24 May 2013 and Karl-Heinz Reith, Deutsche Presse Agentur, Berlin, 12 April 2013. Key interviews were important for providing preliminary insights into the unknown German context; this background information was less necessary in the South African context where the author is based.

2. The constitution in each country has given Länder in the case of Germany, and provinces in the case of South Africa, considerable power in relation to the national government. Germany has 16 Länder; South Africa has nine provinces. Both have a central coordinating structure which has the responsibility for setting norms and standards – the Kultusministerkonferenz and the Council of Education Ministers. Despite its national curriculum, there is consistent reinterpretation at provincial level in South Africa: ‘recontextualisation' of the national curriculum at the provincial and local level is a constant refrain in research (Bertram 2012a, 2012b; DBE 2009). In Germany, such ‘recontextualisation' is built into the way the system works. In both systems, such decentralising tendencies are powerful counter-weights to the federal- or national-level attempts at standardisation.

3. The Klieme Report in Germany (2004; Ertl 2006, 622) and the South African Review Committee Report of 2000 provided the legitimation of standards in each country (DoE 2000). In each it was composed of an academic policy network composed of an interdisciplinary team of scholars. The Klieme Report defines standards as outcomes-based competency models ‘that have their source in general educational goals' (2004, 5). Like SA's assessment standards developed in 2002, Klieme's standards ‘specify the minimum competencies that young people should acquire by a particular grade’, ‘within a specific subject or area of study' (2004). They can, ‘in principle, be operationalised in tasks and assessment scales' (2004, 27). Unlike SA's 2002 curriculum, however, the Report explicitly links a testing and monitoring and evaluation regime to the standards. ‘ … Competencies are described in such specific terms that they can be translated into particular tasks and, in particular, assessed by tests' (2004, 15). South Africa's 2010 CAPS curriculum which abandoned standards and/or outcomes is more explicit about assessments than the 2002 curriculum, but does not prioritise or confine assessments to tests, although these are now included alongside formative assessments. In addition, as in the South African Report of 2000 that provided the intellectual justification for outcomes-based education, it specifies the range of supports that are needed to realise such a system, including teacher training and school supervision. Again, the German proposals are much stronger than the South African on testing competency models, system-wide monitoring, school evaluation and individual diagnosis and support. And whereas the South African Report also discusses the provision and role of learning and teaching support materials, these are taken for granted in the German approach.