Effects of OBE

Back in May, we had the rector of UWC present a professional development session to the staff. During the session he commented on several discussions he'd been having with a variety of lecturers.

He had been asking them how they found the first cohort of OBE students (given that 2009 is the first year that kids who have been on the OBE system since they started school have entered tertiary institutions).

His summary of those discussions made the staff laugh: the kids have all the interpersonal skills we'd love - they can ask questions, they can relate to staff, they can debate - but they can't read or write or add.

His comment, while tragic, is true. At least, it's true in my experience.

On Friday, according to SABC News International, Dr Mamphela Ramphele, said basically the same thing in her address to principals at a conference in Polokwane when she was commenting on why transformation in the private sector is not taking place: "Excuse me, I will not appoint someone who cannot read; write and add. I don’t care how committed you are,” she said

The education department is adamant that OBE is here to stay. Personally, I have no problem with OBE. All good teachers teach in an OBE style: even under the Apartheid government that was true. What I have a problem with is the manner in which the curriculum has been changed and the manner in which OBE is being taught now. I don't mind if OBE stays. I mind if the current curriculum stays. There is no balance in the curriculum, and to my mind there has been no real referencing to the needs of tertiary institutions or the developmental stages of teenagers' brains, let alone any attempt to accept that one simply can no longer teach it all at school: there has simply been too much progress, research and development in every field to continue to teach all the history AND all the current developments at school level.

That debate aside though, there is an even bigger problem in education: a lack of teachers. If I was teaching classes of 20, instead of classes of 30, or if my colleagues at other schools did not have to teach classes of 40 or 50, then maybe, just maybe, the kids would have enough individual time with their teachers to get both the knowledge AND the skills.