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While there have been several calls for decolonising the curriculum in South Africa, more needs to be done at the level of policy development and especially its implementation. The curriculum decolonisation impetus gained a few years back has abated somewhat, and there is a need to reinstate its significance amidst other imperatives we face in the current troubling times. There appears to be a reluctance to continue the decolonising journey, not least of all because of the continuing dominance of European hegemony in almost all facets of the lives of decolonised people, especially evident in the education sector, and specifically through the curriculum. The paper argues that without the decolonisation of the predominantly Eurocentric curriculum, the achievement of justice for the colonised remains elusive. This entails focusing the decolonisation debate from the objectification of the colonised to centring the African being, a reconceptualisation of epistemology as pluriversal and greater visibility of the colonised and coloniality as pre-conditions for decolonising the curriculum. The article reviews the South African response to decolonial insights and considers their implications for higher education curriculum development and practice. It identifies changing attitudes of, and ownership by, academic staff as a key challenge in the implementation of a decolonised curriculum and concludes with tabulating the implication of key concepts of decolonial theory for the curriculum.

AbstractThe aim of this study was to analyse science teachers' language in the classroom within the context of explanation sequences, in order to determine the coherence of the explanations, and the opportunities presented for learners' exposure to the register of science. The study is framed by the concepts of semiotic mediation, register and coherent discourse drawn from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Data were collected through observation and video recording of teachers teaching physical science topics. The unit of analysis were teachers' utterances—their words, sentences and explanation sequences, as they taught a specific science topic and a particular causal relationship. The analysis identified significant differences in the use of coherence devices in the explanation sequences that enhanced or limited transmission of the register of science. Specific cohesive devices that contribute to coherent and incoherent discourse have been distinguished. On the whole, the lesson that was characterised by stronger cohesive devices provided greater opportunities for semiotic mediation necessary for understanding and learning the register of science.

Two fundamental pedagogical principles that underpin the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) in the General Education and Training band (Grades 7-9) are, firstly, a high level of knowledge and skills for all; and secondly, the progression and integration of knowledge. The purpose of this study was to investigate how teachers of three grade 9 classrooms in three diverse schools have responded to these principles. The study was framed by Bernstein's sociological analysis of the stratified distribution of knowledge in different social class schools. Within the case study approach, data were collected through non-participant observation of teachers' classroom practices in the province of KwaZulu Natal (KZN) over a month followed by open-ended interviews with teachers. The findings indicate extreme variations in the subjects/Learning Areas offered across the schools, in high level knowledge and skills taught, in conceptual progression and in access to integrated knowledge. The finding, that the historically disadvantaged school was not able to provide learners with the opportunities to learn high level knowledge and skills, resonates with the findings of other researchers of classroom practices. The dominance of integration with everyday knowledge and the accompanying lack of conceptual progression typical of school knowledge resulted in impoverished learning opportunities for learners. The exemplar of the dual curriculum modality of an integrated curriculum based on a subject-based curriculum as observed in one of the advantaged schools seems to show much promise for attaining both pedagogical principles.