International Conference
“Mapping Practices: Doing Fieldwork in Geography” 
 18 – 20 June 2008
University of Artois, Arras
France 

Paper abstract

Fieldwork and Further Education and Training (FET) in South Africa’s high school Geography curriculum 

Presenter: Michael Dyssel, Department of Geography & Environmental Studies, University of the Western Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellville, 7535; Telephone +27 021 9592426; Fax +27 021 9593422; E-mail: mdyssel@uwc.ac.za

The recent socio-political changes in South Africa precipitated fundamental changes in curriculum development as well as the renewal and/or adaptation of the geographical content and structure of high school curricula. These changes are currently underpinned by a pedagogy rooted in Outcomes Based Education with a specific emphasis on Further Education and Training (FET) as an orientation. The latter presupposes that learners can be effective accumulators, organizers, synthesizers and subsequent generators of knowledge. Theoretically, these changes are also supposed to be reflected in different didactical approaches to the planning, execution and assessment of fieldtrips and fieldwork.
 
The very practice of fieldwork has however, not changed in the same way as changes that geographical content and teachers’ practice have been subjected to. Fieldwork remained therefore largely within its traditional modes of sight-seeing; class room theory in the outside world; and discipline specific approaches that poses epistemological challenges if it is considered as an important means of the production of knowledge. This inertia is further compounded by variables such as the socio-economic background of learners, their academic preparedness, resource allocations to and at schools, as well as capacity and logistical constraints hampering effective administration and services rendered at many schools. 
        
The purpose of this paper is to revisit the position and practice of fieldwork as one of the required/assumed methodologies for the assessment of learning outcomes related to geographical techniques, knowledge and value judgment applications as stipulated in the FET curriculum. A survey conducted in a sample of selected schools in Cape Town provides empirical foundations for some of the arguments pursued in this paper.