Foundation Phase teachers’ experiences of teaching the subject, coding, in selected Western Cape schools

Abstract

Several teachers have recently started introducing coding into their teaching in primary schools. This comes on the back of the emerging prominence of educational technology and the teaching of computational skills at school level, in light of the country’s policy commitment to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Coding has been punted as 1 of 2 essential subjects to be launched in schools countrywide from 2020; the other being robotics. In this article we focus on the implementation of coding as a subject in selected Foundation Phase classes in the Western Cape. We aim to gain an understanding of coding as a subject from the perspective of teachers who are implementing this very new subject in the Foundation Phase. We specifically discuss the experiences and challenges of teachers who have been teaching the subject over the last few years, based on in-depth qualitative interviews with 4 Foundation Phase teachers. Overall, we provide a set of considerations for the optimal implementation of coding as a subject in Foundation Phase in South African schools. The participants’ experiences highlight the challenges associated with implementation, teachers’ pedagogical skills and competences, and resource requirements. We raise the following areas that need to be addressed for the successful implementation of coding: professional development addressing teaching methodologies on the development of computational thinking skills in young learners, providing support for teachers, addressing time constraints in the teaching of the subject, and providing resources.