Article Preview
TopIntroduction
The past decade has seen a global shift in the knowledge economy with a bigger focus on sustainability and economic development. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in particular, require school leavers and job seekers to comply with high digital competence and creative and innovative skills for the knowledge economy. This shift compels governments to either reflect on challenges and find ways of overcoming them or become redundant. Moreover, countries, whether developed or developing, face challenges of high unemployment, inflation, poverty and crime. What are governments doing about these challenges? Are schools equipping students with 21st century knowledge, skills and values for the knowledge economy?
In response to these challenges, the South African National Department of Basic Education decided to emphasise three objectives in the national curriculum for schools, namely learner-centredness, nation-building and non-discrimination (National Department of Education 1996). In light of the above, the curriculum has changed; the needs of learners and the learners themselves should be put at the centre of the teaching and learning process. It is also noted that the curriculum should cater for basic human rights and mutual respect for people irrespective of their background. To reach this objective, the Department of Education (DoE) (2007: 1) formulated guidelines that:
- •
Set a foundation for learning as a life skill;
- •
Promote literacy and comprehension verbally and non-verbally;
- •
Contribute to a holistic approach to learning and personal development;
- •
Develop critical thinking skills and higher-level cognitive skills;
- •
Empower students to communicate confidently and effectively in social and workplace contexts;
- •
Contribute to forming and maintaining healthy and positive relationships.
The above noble objectives were set by the National Department of Education to advance the quality of students’ learning in the South African education system. Based on these objectives, this study focused on the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Department of Basic Education (KZNDBE), which is one of the nine educational departments with more than 6 098 secondary schools (23% of the national total), consisting of 12 educational districts. The demarcated area of the research project included only three educational districts with more than 233 secondary schools (1 320 English First Additional Language educators) such as Ugu, Sisonke and Ilembe in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) (DBE, 2015). This study only reported on the qualitative results collected. The article emerged from the overall research project (2013–2017) objectives to investigate cooperative learning as a student-centred approach, specifically student team-achievement division (STAD) in teaching English First Additional Language (EFAL). It is also important to note that the guidelines set by the DoE (2007) suggest a need for a model that incorporates the needs of learners inside and outside the classroom. Such a model is capable of shaping teaching and learning in such a way that learners will be mentally, physically and socially alert at all times to compete in the global economy. One model that has the propensity to achieve all these is the learning together model (LTM) developed by Johnson and Johnson in 1994. This model is explained in more detail under the Literature review section of this paper.