School geography in South Africa after two decades of democracy: teachers' experiences of curriculum change

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the state of school geography in South Africa as the country celebrates 20 years of democracy. It builds on and expands the narrative contained in two articles (Nel and Binns, 1999; Le Grange and Beets, 2005) published in Geography, which described National Curriculum development at different times during a period of education transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. Our main contention is that while there has been an upward trend in enrolment and learner performance in the Grade 12 exit examination, there are pertinent issues in school geography that still need to be resolved, some of which will be recognised and familiar to an international readership. Significantly, this article addresses a perceived shortcoming in the aforementioned articles, namely a lack of empirical evidence of teachers' experiences of school geography in a period of transformation. Drawing on the findings of a qualitative study, we provide evidence of the difficulties teachers are experiencing and conclude by making some propositions for a way forward.