Department of Science and Technology Education

My journey as a Researcher in Technical Sciences

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Dr Julia Mabel Mabalane, Postdoctoral Fellow (Science Education), in the Department of Science and Technology Education, specialising in Technical Sciences

The journey started in the Department of Basic Education (DBE) where I was appointed as a Physical Science subject specialist then. In the advent of curriculum changes, Technical Science was introduced in 2015 as a new subject in Technical high schools where no teacher was qualified to either teach nor facilitate the subject. As a result of some misconceptions about the curriculum, Physical Science specialists were considered including myself to facilitate as specialist into Technical Science however without background knowledge. Based on the introduction and implementation of the curriculum, it was discovered that there were some flaws. Within my responsibilities of facilitating the curriculum, I was able to identify gaps which propelled me to upgrade my qualifications to N6 Engineering studies of the NATED subjects (N2-N3). These were equivalent to the Technology subject (Grade 10-12). The qualifications in the field meant I became a specialist from the theoretical understanding of the subject and this made a difference during the implementation of the curriculum. In the turn of events, with the complete introduction of the curriculum in all the grades, I was able to contribute to the body of knowledge within the STEM community.

The next career path was when I joined a university as postdoctoral fellow to research further about Technical Science. An opportunity was provided at UNISA under the guidance and support of Prof Motlhabane and Prof Mudau who is the CoD in the department. Within the journey into academia, I discovered that there is still a lot to be done within the field of STEM. Being a postdoctoral researcher made me aware about how much more work and research that still needs to be done to contribute to the Technical Science subject so that it could achieve the same status as those in Mathematics and Physical Sciences subjects. The same is wished for Technical Mathematics since it is a sister subject to the Technical Sciences.

A few skills were developed from becoming a postdoctoral fellow wherein I was able to publish around my area of specialization. From research, I found out that the Technical Science curriculum was a replica of Physical Science. In another research paper, I reported that there still were teachers who teach Technical Science subject without the necessary qualifications even after many years of its first implementation. A further indication in relation to my research was that the initial teacher trainings were provided by people who were not qualified in the subject and this resulted with a misconception that Tech Science was a standard grade version of Physical Science. My journey continues into crafting an identity in the Technical Science field of specialization.

#Moleboheng Ramulumo

 

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Publish date: 2021/09/14

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