It is a compulsory high school subject aimed at equipping learners with knowledge of social issues and tolerance of different cultures, races and religions.
But for years life orientation has been regarded as the poor cousin of SA’s school curriculum, with some educators even calling for the scrapping of what they see as a waste of time.
But since the pandemic, some educators have had a change of heart about the subject because it helped build learners’ resilience during the trying period.
A new study by North West University suggests many educators’ attitudes have changed, with most participants viewing it as an important subject that helped teachers and learners to cope with stress.
Researchers explored the perceptions of about 140 trainee teachers, including first-year and postgraduate students, about life orientation.
Respondents said the subject provided the perfect opportunity to teach children about the pandemic. About 75% of them said they believed it helped pupils and adults to develop skills to engage in positive interactions, even in the worst of times.
Writing in the Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, lead researcher Aletta Botha said participants saw the subject as important and disagreed with the notion that it was dispensable.
“It became evident during the pandemic that violence and abuse have increased. Some of the participants mentioned how learners developed skills to be able to handle those situations better because of what they have learnt in life orientation,” said Botha.
Jonathan Jansen, professor of education at Stellenbosch University, said life orientation, for which no exams were set, was often “seen as a lesser subject and in many schools as a waste of time”, compared with subjects such as maths and science.
“That said, there are schools in which top teachers teach the subject in exemplary ways, and in those minority of cases the children benefit. I have no doubt that under stress conditions, such as the pandemic, the subject could be mobilised to huge advantage in the hands of skilled and committed life orientation teachers.”
He said it should not be taught as a separate subject, but incorporated into teaching in the course of everyday classroom life.
Ismail Teladia, senior curriculum planner at the Western Cape education department, said despite the potential benefits of the subject for pupils, including developing resilience, it was a “soft target” for critics.
“Life orientation has always been a soft target, yet international results have shown that our 10-year-old learners cannot read for meaning. Their numeracy skills are lacking.
“During the Covid pandemic it was the life orientation teachers that pushed the agenda of self-regulated learning. In doing that, learners were given the space and opportunity to develop resilience.”
Professor Michael le Cordeur, vice dean: teaching and learning at Stellenbosch University, said a point of concern “is that we do not have specialised teachers who teach life orientation as in the past because it is no longer an exam subject. So teachers and principals don’t take the subject seriously and it has been given to any teacher who is willing to take on extra work.”
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