The planning of technology education for South African schools

One of the recommendations made in the discussion document,A Curriculum Model for Education in South Africa (CUMSA), which was released by the Department of National Education in 1991, is that technology education should be offered for the first nine years of pre-tertiary education as a compulsory subject and for the last three years as an optional subject. This paper aims to locate technology education in the context of the sociopolitical and economic background to education in South Africa and to assess to what extent it meets the emerging aims and needs of education. Further aims are to propose a rationale for the teaching of technology at school level in South Africa, to suggest possible broad aims for the teaching of technology, to outline the nature and character of technology education relevant to the South African situation and to propose a possible methodology for technology education in South Africa. The conclusion is reached that technology education can make an important contribution to South African education if the so-called technological process is the major emphasis as this can be transformative and promote quality education.Dr Piet Ankiewicz (M Sc, D Ed, HED) is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the Rand Afrikaans University. He is responsible for teacher education programmes in the field of Science, and for an M Ed course in technology education. His areas of research include education policy and curriculum development for technology education.