South African higher education institutions face a major agenda of curriculum reform. As Mieke Vogels, Program Officer for the Dutch agency, NUFFIC, pointed out, under apartheid, the education systems for different racial groups had different objectives at all levels of education. Math, sciences, engineering and other applied science fields, and management training were excluded from African institutions and an overabundance of African students studied the humanities. Therefore, redress is needed for HDIs to be able to offer a curriculum that will prepare their students for full participation in the economy and civil society. In addition to these special needs, several participants in the curriculum reform session pointed about that the rapidly changing world economy is imposing challenges for curriculum reform on academics in all countries.

In order to address both the specific need for redress and the national and global demands for curricular reform, Jonathan Jansen of UDW proposed that South Africa needs not just to train more Africans in fields from which they were previously excluded, but also to create new curricula that include the social and environmental dimensions of technical skills, for example. This type of curricular reform is needed in institutions in other countries, as well. Jansen also advocated that any partnership agreement for curricular reform should contain goals for expanding the number of trained blacks and women.

Jansen shared his experience with a partnership between the faculties of education at UDW and the University of Sussex that involved curriculum reform, research, and staff development. In order to ensure mutual benefit, rather than a repeat of the colonial model of a one-way flow of knowledge from the North to the South, junior and senior faculty members from both institutions participated.

Participants in the curriculum reform session acknowledged that it is the responsibility of South Africans to determine the curricular needs of their institutions. This planning is occurring within the National Qualifications Framework that sets standards for the national higher education system.

Teboho Moja of the Ministry of Education identified opportunities for partnerships in developing program-based education in order to make the curriculum more flexible, relevant, and responsive to society's needs. This would further goals for curricular reform contained in the White Paper on higher education. Such partnerships could be interdisciplinary and intra-institutional, said Moja, as well as including cooperation among higher education institutions in the region along with a partner from the North.

Beneficial partnerships with technikons may focus on involving relevant stakeholders such as employers and professional associations in improving the curriculum in order to prepare students for the changing demands of the labor market. Mieke Vogels suggested that this can include both involving representatives from the private sector in curriculum design and as guest lecturers and also designing coop programs or internships that provide students with experience in industry as an element of their career-based education.

Making the curriculum more responsive to the needs of the labor market and to the development needs of the country is one of the goals of the Technikon Northern Gauteng (TNG) partnership with several Dutch institutions. This program takes an integrated approach to curriculum reform, including not only evaluation of what is to be taught but also appropriate teaching methods and applied research. Staff development and curriculum reform are intimately connected since the most crucial factor in successful curriculum reform is the knowledge of the teacher, said Vogels.

There is a growing body of research that identifies effective methods of teaching and learning that can be shared and expanded upon by partnered institutions. For example, Ann Austin reported that a number of South African teaching colleagues had expressed interest in applying strategies that encourage active learning, which are advocated by U.S. colleagues.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]