Innovations in technology education toward technological literacy – A study of two high schools in South Africa

Abstract

Over the past two decades, South Africa has emphasised the need for school learners to be technologically literate by the end of high school. Specifically, South Africa’s Department of Education (2007) and the Department of Basic Education (2019) stated that it was critical for high school learners to be technologically literate by the end of their schooling. The inclusion of Technology as a subject within the South African education policy framework was considered an important innovation, an attempt at making the curriculum compatible with the skills needed of a globalised economy (Ankiewicz, 2020). Given this context, the goal for teaching Technology as a school subject should enable both learners and teachers to acquire skills, values, knowledge, and attitudes to become critical and creative thinkers and developers. There is a need to continuously explore ways to promote the effective teaching and learning of Technology at high school level. This study explores the teachers’ adoption of ICT into the teaching of the school subject Technology in two Cape Town high schools. The theoretical framework drawn on in this study is the RAT model (Hughes et al., 2006), which helps in the understanding of an individual learners’ and teachers’ personal experiences of teaching, and understanding technology’s role in teaching, learning, and curricular practices. The study explores the presence or absence of ICT adoption and utilisation in the teaching of Technology, as well as techniques that were applied within pedagogical practices. The research design was a multiple case study at the two schools in the Province of the Western Cape. A qualitative approach was used to collect and analyse the data. Semi-structured interviews with both the Grade 9 learners and teachers were conducted. Focus group discussions were conducted with the learners at the selected high schools, herein referred to as School A and School B. Based on the findings, recommendations will be disseminated to the Department of Basic Education in raising the learners’ levels of technological literacy through innovative teaching and learning strategies.