Responsiveness of the South African teacher education curriculum for 21st-century needs: a narrative review

Abstract

This narrative review analyzed what a responsive curriculum is and whether the South African teacher education curriculum is responsive to the demands of the 21st-century. We utilized the desktop research via a narrative review methodology to extract answers to these questions by searching Google, Scopus, ERIC, and EBSCO databases. Findings show that a responsive curriculum allow educators and students to be aware of their responsibilities within the teaching and learning environment, enable students to pursue knowledge and skills that align with their interests and backgrounds, enabling job seekers to become entrepreneurs, and adapting to the shifting demands of employers while ensuring emancipation and empowerment. A responsive curriculum aligns with students’ economic, cultural, disciplinary, and learning needs. However, the South African teacher education curriculum is yet to fully respond to 21st-century skills’ needs. A responsive curriculum is sensitive to current contextual realities and that the South African teacher education curriculum be designed and implemented to develop 21st-century skills among pre-service and graduate teachers. The teacher education curriculum should be dynamic by meeting up with the demands cum expectation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution era and be balanced in addition to its role of developing responsible, humane, and compassionate citizens/graduates. Especially for South African, the decolonization discussion and the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge and systems should be fully enshrined into the teacher education curriculum— the “mother” of other curricula.