This Research Report critiques the English Home Language Literature setworkudselection for the period 2009-2011 in terms of the National CurriculumudStatement for English Home Language for Grades 10- 12 to establish whetherudthere is consonance between policy and practice in this section of the syllabusudand to determine whether the new national syllabus offers a traditional or audtransformational approach to the subject.udIn order to do this, the National Curriculum Statement is analysed in terms ofudthe principles and outcomes which it intends to be actualised in the study ofudEnglish and selects those that seem applicable to literature studies. Questionsudare formulated encapsulating these principles and used as the tools to critiqueudthe new national literature syllabus both as regards its individual constituentudparts and as regards the syllabus as a whole.udA brief comparison between the current prescribed literature selection andudsetworks set from 1942 to the present day establishes whether the new syllabusudhas departed from old syllabus designs, whether it acknowledges the newudtarget group of pupils in multiracial English Home Language classrooms byudoffering a revised, wider and more inclusive selection of novels, dramas,udpoems and other genres such as short stories, or whether it remainsudtraditionally Anglocentric in conception.udThe conclusions reached are that although the setworks conform to the letter ofudthe requirements set down in the NCS, the underlying spirit of transformationudis not realised. The inclusion of some poets from Africa and South Africa isudmerely content addition to a Eurocentric core curriculum, a form of tokenismudwhich does not reorientate the syllabus significantly or move it away from itsudtraditional trajectory. The report suggests that literature of merit from bothudAfrica and South Africa be included in every part of the syllabus so that itudreflects in some degree the contributions that the continent makes to Englishudliterature, in this way including in its scope the interests and identities of theudwide range of learners studying English Home Language in the South Africanudcontext.
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