Infusing Climate Change Education into Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) as a Resilience Strategy in South Africa: Towards a Theory of Change

Abstract

Despite the prominent role played by education in knowledge creation, developing of skills and attitudes among people, little has been done in the domain of climate change education in the current Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) in South Africa. This is not to say that no scholars have looked at issues of climate change in education. Therefore, the main goal of this research is to investigate how curriculum development and learning materials should incorporate climate change to raise awareness. The researcher attempts to illustrate deeper learning approaches that aim to instil values and belief systems in the domain of climate change knowledge and experience. The study used qualitative interviews and purposeful sampling methods to ascertain rich and in-depth information from the participants. The findings revealed that the majority of the teachers emphasized that the CAPS’s lack of explicit content was the primary issue. Given the limited knowledge creation in the domain of climate change in developing countries, in particular South Africa’s curricula, the study concluded that much has to be done to integrate climate change education in the current CAPS curricula. The study recommends that continuous awareness campaigns should be undertaken to conscientise people about the importance of climate change education.

Keywords

• climate change education
• sustainable development
• infusing
• resilience
• intermediate phase
• senior phase
• fet phase