The Enhancement of Pedagogical Capital by Civil Technology Teachers when Engaged with Practical Assessment Task: A Curriculum Transformation Legacy

Abstract

Within the South African context, there are perennial curriculum reforms of technical subjects, for example civil technology, which is offered from grade 10 to 12 at secondary school level. Amidst these curriculum reforms there is a shortage of technical curriculum advisors to capacitate teachers for the implementation of the revised curricula and a paucity of studies on how to enhance pedagogical capital. This undermines teachers’ efforts in giving learners adequate industrial skills. In this conceptual study, we learn that teachers are now having autonomy to prepare, implement and assess the self-made Practical Assessment Task (PAT) without close pedagogical guidance from their stakeholders. As such, this conceptual study brings strategies that will assist teachers in maximising their pedagogical capital to cope with the recent curriculum change. This study found that indeed there are far too many expectations that civil technology teachers must accomplish before their learners can be adequately equipped with hands-on skills. A pedagogical capital framework was proposed to assist curriculum advisors and implementors to engage positively with PAT whilst upholding a global quality standard. This study recommends that the proposed framework could be applied to other technical subjects like engineering graphics and design, electrical technology and mechanical technology as they are faced with similar pedagogical challenges.