The Indigenous Knowledge of African Traditional Health Practitioners and the South African Science Curriculum

Abstract

South Africa's new and revised National Curriculum Statement implicitly suggests the integration of indigenous knowledge (IK) into the science curriculum so that learners can, inter alia, learn within the context of their cultural knowledge. Unfortunately, teachers do not necessarily know about the various indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) within South Africa. We therefore decided to identify the ideas of traditional health practitioners (THPs) concerning what children need to know, and then to obtain science teachers' responses to these ideas. In this pilot study in the Western Cape, we used a qualitative approach and conducted in-depth interviews with a small group of THPs, with a follow-up questionnaire and discussion with a larger group. We then shared the THPs' ideas with both experienced science educators and high school science teachers. Our results show that THPs think that South African learners need to know about and respect their heritages, especially African IKS. They emphasized the importance of learning about health and freedom from disease, particularly HIV/AIDS. The THPs believe that both science and IK are important in the education of learners, and that they could co-teach their IK in conjunction with science topics. They suggested how they could do this. They believe that science teachers need to learn about IK, and suggested that THPs could learn some science. Both groups of science teachers were interested in, and strongly supportive of the THP suggestions. They also emphasized that IK needs to be standardized and validated by an indigenous organization.