Teacher Learning in a Community of Practice: A Case Study of ...

entrenched design feature of C2005, classroom-based research on teachers' practice
indicates that teaching remains largely teacher-centred. This is despite teachers'
enthusiastic acceptance ofthe new curriculum and their perceptions that they were
working within its principles (DoE 2000; Jansen 1999; Taylor and Vinjevold 1999).
Teachers were able to articulate the essential features ofC2005, namely, that ofteacher
as facilitator, the use ofgroup work and other learner-centred activities, but their actual
practice indicated that teachers "had embraced the form rather than the spirit and content
of the ideas" (DoE 2000:78). However, Brodie, Lelliot and Davies argue that it may be
inappropriate to make such generalisations about teachers' assumption oflearner-centred
practices. Teachers' contexts, biographies and knowledge influence the extent to which
they take up new ideas: " ... teacher characteristics, such as prior qualifications, reflective
competence, grade level, subject knowledge and confidence, access to resources and
support structures in their schools, are all implicated in their take-up oflearner-centred
practices" (Brodie, Lelliot and Davies 2002: 114). Teachers are likely to vary in the extent
to which they embrace the form and substance oflearner-centred practices.
It must be noted that although learner-centredness is coupled with OBE in C2005, seeds
of this principle were fertilised by 'alternative curricula' in the form ofthe Freirean­
influenced People's Education movement ofthe 1980s. Other distinctive features of
People's Education that began to germinate in the new curriculum were equal access for
all, critical thinking, bridging the gap between theoretical and practical knowledge,
teachers as curriculum developers, group work, community participation, and continuous
assessment.
C2005 and OBE have been subjected to intense (and often hostile) critique from various
stakeholders (including curriculum experts, sociologists and philosophers ofeducation,
teachers, and trade unions) so much so, that the then Minister ofEducation instituted a
Review Committee with the brief to review the curriculum. The eventual result was the
release ofRevised National Curriculum Statement in 2002.
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