A step closer to specialised sector-based curriculum

• Published date: 20 May 2022
• Publication title: South African Official News

Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, says a specialist-subject curriculum, which will see learners enrolling for subjects such as agriculture and maritime, has been gazetted for public comment.

The Minister said this when she tabled the department's budget vote during a mini-plenary of the National Assembly on Thursday.

'We are continuing to expand the establishment of Focus Schools to cater for learners with special talents and aptitudes across a wide range of scholastic endeavours.

'These schools constitute a legislatively distinct category of public schools that offer a specialised curriculum, oriented toward 11 learning fields, which include Agriculture, Maritime and Nautical Science, Mathematics, Science and Technology, and Technical Occupational disciplines such as Electrical, Civil and Mechanical Technologies.

'In addition to our detailed progress report we gave last year, we can further report that 35 Occupational and Vocationally-oriented subjects have been gazetted for public comment,' she said.

Motshekga said the gazetting was followed in 2021 by the submission of these subjects to Umalusi for appraisal and quality assurance.

'Public comments have been received, and their infusion in the CAPS [Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements]...