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Contesting discourses in higher education curriculum restructuring in South Africa

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Abstract

This article describes effortsfrom the mid-1990s in South Africa to reshapehigher education curricula, and the responsesof universities to a series of policyinitiatives concerned with higher educationcurriculum reform. Pressures of globalisationand the local challenges of reconstruction anddevelopment formed the context in which highereducation curriculum restructuring occurred.Two discourses, acredit-accumulation-and-transfer discourse anda disciplinary discourse, have shaped educationpolicy making in South Africa since themid-1990s, particularly in higher education.Policy initiatives to re-shape higher educationcurricula are discussed, as well as the ways inwhich science and humanities faculties atuniversities have responded to theseinitiatives. A typology of different curriculumforms is presented which suggests that in spiteof the influence of the credit exchangediscourse in policy documents, undergraduatecurricula continue to be presented on a largelydisciplinary basis.

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Ensor, P. Contesting discourses in higher education curriculum restructuring in South Africa. Higher Education 48, 339–359 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:HIGH.0000035544.96309.f1

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