Literature review

The development of a new curriculum in the 1990s was viewed as an opportunity to transform music education to include traditional African music and Indian classical music. The new, post-apartheid curriculum was an outcomes-based curriculum in which the arts were broadly banded to include dance, drama, music and the visual arts. The education policy was a transformation of previous policies in that all learners would have access to arts education. Arts education was also given equal status with all the other subjects and learning areas.

The principles underlying the new curriculum were derived from the constitution and included freedom of expression, affirmation of all cultural expression, promotion of equal access to resources and redressing imbalances (DoE, 1997 [October a, b]). In the broadly banded arts curriculum, known as Arts and Culture, there was an acknowledgement of the historical dominance of Western arts, and the under-resourcing and provisioning of the arts. The new curriculum had as its goal to actively reclaim, preserve, develop and promote indigenous arts and cultural practices (DoE, 1997 [October a, b]). In practice, addressing equal access was not realised as the under-qualified teachers did not receive any training nor did schools receive resources to implement the curriculum.

The curriculum did not explicitly state content for any of the art forms. The arts curriculum was expressed in terms of eight broad specific outcomes, assessment criteria, range statements, and performance indicators which expressed what the learners would be able to do. The content to be taught was not specified, and the scope and breadth of the curriculum was broad enough to embrace a wide range of activities. The foci of the textbooks written for this curriculum were the themes derived from the values of the constitution. The aim of promoting historically marginalised cultures is especially evident in the eighth specific outcome that states, 'Acknowledge, understand and promote historically marginalised arts and cultural forms and practices' (DoE, 1997 [October b]).

Common themes in textbooks included the environment, popular culture, traditional African culture, Indian culture, San culture, protest theatre and South African traditional craft. This meant that the textbooks were multicultural in both content and also in methodologies suggested. Ironically this curriculum that lived up to the spirit of the constitution and resonated with the dialogues described by Oehrle was met with resistance on the part of educators from all levels, due to its lack of specified content and broad scope.

The revised version of Curriculum 2005, the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) for the first nine years of schooling was underpinned by the same values as its predecessor. This curriculum emphasised a national South African identity built on values that are different from those of apartheid education (DoE, 2002, p. 3). The aims of music was that it should cover a wide variety of African and other classical Arts and Culture practices as well as innovative and emergent Arts and Culture practices (DoE, 2002, p. 5).

The revised version of the curriculum was presented in a more streamlined form. Four learning outcomes replaced the eight specific outcomes of the previous curriculum. The learning outcomes made reference to the arts activities including: creating, interpreting and presenting, reflecting, participating and collaborating and expressing and communicating. The learning outcomes remained the same for each grade but the content and skills as expressed in the stated assessment standards for each art form became progressively more difficult for each grade. The learning outcomes for each grade were organised around themes derived from the constitution, and reflected the vocabulary of the previous curriculum. Themes included: respect for the environment, South African heritage, affirming diversity, rituals, human rights issues and nation-building. While an analysis of the curriculum highlights activities typically found in a Western curriculum, such as listening to music, performing (singing and playing), reading and writing music and creating, due to the overarching themes there are opportunities for a multicultural approach with respect to content. This curriculum furthermore reflects a lack of progression and continuity among the grades. Activities as stated in the assessment standards suggest that they were derived from the overarching themes with no concern for cohesion or progression. In essence the curriculum was such that it could be taught as a series of disjointed activities in the arts that were unified by the overarching themes. The curriculum did not specify the breadth and scope of the content and teachers could choose their own content. Textbooks were organised according to the overarching organising principles that became the themes around which the art forms were organised. This curriculum, like its predecessor, had a multicultural focus and enabled an eclectic approach to teaching and learning.

During this period of curriculum revision the teachers could still be described as under-qualified to teach the school curriculum. When the new curricula were introduced, education departments were tasked with orientating the teachers to them. However, the focus was on the terminology of the curriculum, not on content and methodologies. Schools remained under-resourced, with the disparities of apartheid still a reality for the majority of learners in South Africa. From my experiences as curriculum advisor from 2003 to 2010, I can attest that when teachers could not make sense of the curriculum, they reverted to teaching that which they knew, which in the case of Black teachers in township schools, was traditional culture, dances and rituals. During this time no tertiary institutions were mandated to offer courses that would enable teachers to teach the arts curriculum.

In 1988, in her book entitled, A New Direction for South African Music Education, Oehrle reminded us that traditional music education in the West consists mainly of music literacy and singing. From the 1960s onwards creativity was endorsed as the third major role of music education (p. 35). The second revision of the post-1994 curriculum is known as the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) document and was developed to improve implementation (DoE, 2010, p. 3). It was at this time that the Arts and Culture learning area was renamed Creative Arts. The music component of this curriculum is organised according to three topics, namely music literacy, music listening and performing and creating music (DoE, 2010, 2011). In other words it is organised in an identical way as music curricula in the West, and in fact resonates with the curricula of the USA, Australia and the UK. Further evidence of this is that unlike the overt multicultural values of its predecessors, this curriculum aims to develop performance skills, music literacy and creativity. African and indigenous music is mentioned as a style of music for active listening (DoE, 2011, p. 9). Added to this there are no overarching themes derived from the constitution that would allow for integration across the arts or for a more multicultural approach except where content is explicitly stated.

In the Intermediate Phase, grades 4–6, the non-Western components are evident in reflecting on percussive and melodic musical instruments in an African music piece, classifying African instruments, performing South African songs, African drumming, reflecting on popular African music such as kwaito, free-kiba, malombo and soukous, reflecting on two different types of South African music in terms of cultural context, lyrical content, mood and purpose of the music, and reflecting on music in cultural rituals.

In the Senior phase, grades 7–9, the only evidence that the curriculum is meant for South African schools is in selected multicultural content such as indigenous and cultural songs and songs from Western, African, Indian and popular music, tone colour of African traditional instruments, performing on traditional instruments, African drumming and learning about the national anthem (contributors and lyrics). An analysis of the music curriculum reveals that it is a synthesis of a Western orientated curriculum with multicultural African elements and a Western approach for teaching and learning. Textbooks for the curriculum mirror this approach.

It has been previously stated that teachers were not qualified to teach the new arts learning area. Due to the fact that the teachers were unable to successfully implement the school curriculum, over a period of eight years, in my capacity as curriculum advisor I conducted content and skills-based workshops for teachers in my district so that they could implement the curriculum. This strategy had limited success due to numerous factors, including that there was no continuity between those who attend workshops and those implementing the curriculum at schools. Each time a workshop was presented different teachers would attend from the schools. This was verified by viewing the attendance registers over the period of eight years which showed that either no teacher attended from a school or that for each workshop there was a different teacher from the school. Added to this, school principals moved teachers around from grade to grade and to different learning areas. This led to a disjoint between policy and practice. While policy advocated access to the arts for all, practice meant that teachers could not develop knowledge and skills in music, which in turn led to limited or no implementation.

In 2007 I was afforded the opportunity by a tertiary institution to develop an accredited continuing professional development programme (CPD) for teachers in the Eastern Cape Province which, at the time of its implementation, was sponsored by the provincial government. The development of this programme was not mandated by government and was first implemented in 2009. Equivalent to a one year fulltime programme, the programme was presented part-time over two years. The main purpose of this programme is to transform teachers’ ability to implement the school curriculum, which at the time of the first intake of students was the revised national curriculum statement (RNCS). When I developed the continuing professional development programme to improve classroom practice, I was cognisant of the literature on continuing professional development programmes that advocated that the programme should be presented by an expert and be based on the school curriculum. Furthermore, the methodologies for classroom use should be experienced by the students and they should develop activities for the classroom and reflect on their classroom practice (Figueiredo, Reference FIGUEREDO2004; Andrews, Reference ANDREWS2006).

A case study of transformation

All the students enrolled for this programme were qualified teachers, but lacked formal training in the arts. The content, methodologies and skills needed for the classroom were modelled during the lectures. Students interacted with the school curriculum from grades 4–9, by means of listening to music, performing music, reading and writing music and creating music according to the school curriculum documents and its revisions (DoE 2002, 2010, 2011). The approach that was followed was a synthesis of a Western approach combined with multicultural content and multicultural approaches to teaching and learning.

In my teaching I made every effort to ensure that the sources for the multicultural content were reliable and authentic. The students were typically female and Xhosa speaking from the rural parts of the Eastern Cape Province, equipped with a large repertoire of cultural and traditional songs, and who regularly participated in cultural events. When teaching songs, I found that versions found in songbooks were on occasion not the version known to the class. On these occasions I asked the students to sing the version they knew, and this then became part of the singing repertoire for the whole class. When students engaged in African drumming, they were taught by expert musicians within the community of practice of indigenous music traditions. In recognition of a multicultural approach to teaching and learning, I encouraged students to code-switch in their classrooms; that is, to explain concepts in the mother tongue to learners in order to make learning accessible.Footnote ¹ I also made the students aware of possible resources that could be used in the classroom.

In each group of students there were at least two students who were not Black and Xhosa-speaking. The interactions in the class and learning about and experiencing multicultural content led them to be transformed and move out of their 'comfort zones', and enabled them to follow a multicultural approach in their own teaching and learning environments.

At the start of the programme, in the very first lecture, I always began by asking the students what they would like to learn from the course. Over a period of three intakes of students, they unanimously stated that they would like to read music 'on the lines'. The ability to be literate in music and specifically the ability to read Western notation is a skill that has consistently been desired by all the students.

Over the two years of the course the students experienced the school curriculum through the modelling of classroom activities and assessment tools during the lectures. In the development of these activities and assessment tools I used Bloom's taxonomy in that the classwork was arranged in a progressive order of difficulty. This practice served as a model for classroom practice, where the teacher would teach a concept and consolidate it over time with increasing levels of complexity.

Due to the fact that all the students were either teachers or curriculum officials, the lectures were presented during the school holidays. During the first two sessions I made every effort to complete the school curriculum, so that the third session of each year could be devoted to consolidation, revision and assessment. In practice, the students were divided into two smaller groups, so that I worked with between 23 and 25 students at a time to ensure individual attention and that they achieved high levels of understanding and proficiency. Each session was two hours long and devoted to specific concepts and activities.

In order to measure their content knowledge and skills the students had to complete worksheets during the lectures and engage in class discussions that could include students explaining the work to each other. I used these worksheets and verbal interactions to determine the students’ progress and also the effectiveness of my practice. The class discussions also included students sharing their classroom practice. These led to lively discussions with students sharing ideas with the group.

Purpose of the study

The purpose of the current study was to determine the extent to which music education has been transformed in South Africa.

Research methodology

In this research I followed a case study approach. I gathered data from observations of class discussions, portfolio of teaching practice, lesson presentations and the summative exam at the end of the course. The evidence of classroom practice was the teacher portfolio of planning and assessment, and the learners’ portfolios that were compilations of the classroom activities of the year. Students were also encouraged to provide additional evidence such as photographs and video clips. Students then referred to their portfolios to teach a selection of lessons to their peers as part of the assessment of the course.

At the end of each year students wrote an open-book summative exam that assessed their ability to develop classroom activities and assessment activities for all the art disciplines according to the requirements of the school curriculum. In each year I gave the students a story or poem from South Africa as the source material for the development of these activities.

Research findings

The research findings were derived from the data gathered. All the students completed the class assessments and participated in the lecture activities. Written class assessments in the form of theory worksheets provided evidence of the students’ perceptions and enabled me to modify practice to ensure the efficacy of the course. The class discussions gave me insights into the students’ classroom practice and how they adapted activities to accommodate their context. These included making instruments for ensemble playing and having the learners draw lines in their books for music theory in the absence of manuscript paper.

Curriculum officials who had attended the course budgeted for the arts in their districts. This led to a transformation of arts implementation in that schools were equipped with materials for the visual arts, keyboards for music, reference books for the arts and djembe drums. Teachers who completed the programme could teach the arts, and, due to their bursary obligations, had to teach the arts for an extended period of time. This ensured that teaching and access to the arts was positively transformed, so that policy and practice complemented each other. Additionally, students who were sponsored by the provincial education department were compelled to present workshops in their districts and in this way transform other teachers to be able to implement the arts. Furthermore, they were active in their districts and cultural festivals arranged that included both Western and traditional African arts practices.

In their lesson presentations, students could teach any part of the curriculum and a grade of their choice. The students presented good lessons, although there was a tendency among the majority of students to repeat the activities from the lectures. This was especially true for the music literacy activities. Students also showed evidence of applying the music literacy skills they had learnt, by being able to access and read a wider repertoire of music and being able to transcribe to tonic sol-fa, a skill they had learnt in the course.

In all the groups, the students passed the summative exam. The music activities they developed were a synthesis of both Western and African practices. For instance students would write the lyrics of a traditional folksong to accompany the story and then notate rhythmic accompaniment to it as well as compose a second part in tonic sol-fa.

The verbal feedback from the students has been positive. All the groups of students have stated that they would encourage others to enrol for the course. They have also indicated that they have developed skills and confidence to teach the learning area and music. Moreover they stated that the course was helpful in preparing them for classroom practice and that they could apply what they had learnt in their teaching practice.

Concluding thoughts

In South Africa, curriculum renewal held the promise of transformation to include the diverse cultures present in South Africa. However, over time the curriculum has been revised and moved towards following a more Western approach. Moreover, the curriculum changes did not lead to greater access to the arts as teachers were not skilled and as the government did not make a concerted effort to ensure that policy was implemented through up-skilling teachers and the provision of resources. The continuing professional development programme described in this article has had a very limited impact in transforming practice due to the small number of teachers who attended this programme, when one compares these numbers to the vast majority of under-qualified teachers at schools.

However, the CPD programme still follows an eclectic approach and attempts to include the cultural traditions found in South Africa in order to transform the outlook and approach to teaching and learning of all the students. Students who have experience of a specific music tradition now have the advantage that they can traverse both the Western tradition of music making and their own cultural practices.

Finally, future curriculum renewal in South Africa should revisit the values of the constitution and engage all the relevant stakeholders so that learners in non-specialist music classes might become familiar with different music traditions and democratic principles might be fostered.