CRITICAL CROSS-FIELD OUTCOMES 1

Behind and beyond and underneath all the subject matter available to study on the South African education and training scene lie the CCFO's - the Critical Cross-Field Outcomes as identified by SAQA and underpinning all learning. They even have to be identified as such and their testing shown on assessment instruments. How many people, especially learners, are aware of them?

THE CCFO's are, of course, fundamental skills. No matter what the subject is that a child or adult may be studying, if the CCFO's are not present, the subject matter remains isolated and unconnected with the rest of the student's experience. And this disconnectedness, this lack of reference and being able to relate learning material, is the root cause of academic dysfunction and the need for a 30% pass mark to boost the self-esteem of learners. Surely the long-term sustainability of our education system, and the functionality of our population, would be much better served if the CCFO's were taught as meta-learning, and students made aware of how they can apply them to all areas of learning? In so doing a functional network of inter-related learning can be created in ALL minds, facilitating the acquisition and retention of knowledge and resulting in an intellectually competitive nation.

The first CCFO is the ability to:
Identify and solve problems in which responses demonstrate that responsible 
decisions using critical and creative thinking have been made.  

Quite a mouthful, that one, which can be broken into the following components for ease of discussion:
1. Identifying problems
2. Solving problems
3. Making responsible decisions
4. Thinking critically
5. Thinking creatively

What comes to mind after just GLANCING at those components, each of which should be a CCFO on its own, is that these skills, or the conscious teaching and acquiring of them, are somehow lacking in our education system. Of course, they are in the manuals, printed out in the assessment guides and methods...but do they reach the children? Is teaching, in general, geared towards instilling this approach in learners? Or are there too many THINGS to teach and work to plough children through? Is the hysterical, narrow focus on "MATHS & SCIENCE" detracting from the more important task of developing minds that can make decisions based on a much wider set of resources?

Once a mind has learnt to identify and solve problems, think creatively and critically, and make responsible decisions BECAUSE it CAN think like that, maths and science will follow easily if the student wishes to pursue them. The student will also have a wide frame of reference, from which s/he can choose options to pursue career-wise.

The minds of young children can absorb so much more than we are limiting them to in our current GET practice. The correct and visionary policies and theory lurk somewhere in the system: we should let children participate in their own development by CONSCIOUSLY using an approach of problem-solving, referring to a wide range of resources in the process, and learning to think CRITICALLY and not to accept anything at face value. Watch the retention rate, pass-rate and employment rate skyrocket after 10 years of actually APPLYING the CCFO's!