ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the reform through an analysis of the NCS curriculum for reading and number in Foundation Phase. The analysis shows how the possibilities of the resulting curriculum influencing practice would depend on which parts of the curriculum were read and how they were read. The 2000 review of the first post-apartheid curriculum was a significant chapter in South Africa's post-apartheid education history. The process was a complex one, which was riven with strong interests which pulled the idea of a revised curriculum in different directions. Critically, the government of the day dug its heels in on its economic policies, and was reluctant to go back on education decisions, like outcomes-based education, that were linked to these. But an outcomes-based, economistic focus was only one interest at play. Through the Curriculum 2005 Review Report academic arguments around knowledge and its organization in the curriculum entered official discourse.
