Browsing by Author "Govender, Muniamma."
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Item An investigative study into ways of incorporating road safety education in the revised national curriculum statement in the further education and training band.(2004) Govender, Muniamma.; Combrinck, Martin.; Graham-Jolly, Michael.This research focuses on how Road Safety Education can be incorporated into the Revised National Curriculum Statement in the Further Education and Training Band. Education is based on theories about how learners learn, what influences that learning and what is effective practice. Such theories are based on research. Educational research may be seen as a systematic attempt to gain a better understanding of the educational process, generally with a view to improving its efficiency. Varied view points are obtained when qualified individuals with common or divergent backgrounds are brought together to explore a problem, to provide information or to valuate the merits of a proposition. I chose to interview the Heads of Department of the existing learning areas in order to explore their attitudes and opinions towards the incorporation of Road Safety Education in the Revised National Curriculum Statement. The interview focused on their understanding of this curriculum, implementing it, Road Safety Education and how it can be incorporated into this curriculum. Questionnaires and interviews are a way of getting data about people by asking them rather than by observing and sampling their behaviour. For this study the 50 grade 11 learners were presented with carefully selected and ordered questions in a combination of closed and open form. This enabled the learners to answer freely and fully in their own words and their own frame of reference concerning the incorporation of Road Safety Education in the Revised National Curriculum Statement. This research was prompted by the high fatality rate in the country as a result of road accidents. An in-depth analysis of documents, provided by the KZN Department of Transport, were undertaken. This researcher found that documents provided information about aspects of road safety, proper road usage, and other factors that contribute to the high fatality rates on our roads, aspects that could not be observed because they had taken place before this investigative study had occurred. Each year, publication of the figures for road accidents bring fresh disappointments especially for those who have striven so hard for an improvement. The time has now come for us to recognise that the conventional road safety programmes of the past years are incapable, no matter how delicately applied, of yielding anything but marginal improvements. What is surely needed is some new approach with a potential for huge improvements. Road safety should be about education and not about prosecution. Educational programmes must be undertaken to overcome existing areas of ignorance and to initiate a process of change concerning road safety. It is therefore imperative that the Revised National Curriculum Statement incorporates a comprehensive, compulsory Road Safety Education Programme.Item The road safety education programme : a journey into the school curriculum.(2012) Govender, Muniamma.; Combrinck, Martin.This study's aim was to solicit the beliefs, attitudes and perceptions of the teachers to the implementation of the road safety education programme in the context of curriculum change in five primary schools in the Pietermaritzburg Region. It is the beliefs and the attitudes of the teachers that imply assumptions about curriculum change and implementation that was the major focus of this study. The implementation of the road safety education programme was studied in the context of curriculum change. This was done by using a qualitative research methodology. A case study research method was employed to gather data. Through semi-structured teacher interviews, classroom observations and learner administered questionnaires, the researcher was able to answer the three critical questions of the study. For the analysis of the data, interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was used. The analysis of the data revealed that despite the teaching and learning constraints that teachers experience in the classroom with implementing curriculum change, they do the best that they can. They implemented the road safety education programme in very innovative and interactive ways. Feedback from teacher interviews regarding the implementation of the road safety education programme, indicated that it was a good programme which was well developed and aligned to the Revised National Curriculum Statement. It was informative and provided learners with a wide range of age appropriate knowledge and expertise to make them safe and responsible road users. This study also revealed the gaps in the literature where road safety education and its implementation, is concerned. This study makes a number of recommendations for successful curriculum implementation in the context of change. Because of the qualitative nature of the data collected it was difficult to establish whether there was, in fact behavioural changes regarding safe and responsible road user behaviour. Therefore the study recommends that more research must be carried out on the implementation of the road safety education programme because this study only represented five primary schools. This study also emphasized the importance of implementing road safety education from grade R to Grade 12 to enhance safe and responsible road user behaviour. This may be useful in reinforcing safe and responsible road user behaviour. Twelve years of road safety education will definitely have a cumulative effect which will be beneficial to the learner. A permanent space must be found in the CAPS school curricula to deliver appropriate and effective road safety education from Grade R to Grade 12. The basic epistemological approach of the research reflects the importance of moving beyond universal truths about implementation as a complex and highly contingent enterprise in which variations is the rule rather than the exception. This study subsequently concluded that the successful implementation of the road safety education programme was dependent on the teacher‟s beliefs, attitudes and perceptions of the innovation.