© Kamla-Raj 2016 J Soc Sci, 46(1): 61-70 (2016) Implementing the National Curriculum Statement in the Further Education and Training Band: Educator’s Experiences in South Africa Sewela M. Mabusela 1* , David P. Ngidi 2 and Sitwala N. Imenda³ 1 Department of Curriculum and Instructional Studies, Faculty of Education, University of Zululand, KwaDlangezwa, South Africa 2 Faculty of Humanities, Central University of Technology, Free State, South Africa * E-mail: mabuselam@unizulu.ac.za KEYWORDS Educators. Further Education and Training band. National Curriculum Statement ABSTRACT This study examined educators’ experiences in implementing the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) in the Further Education and Training (FET) band (Grades 10-12 schools). A quantitative research approach was used in a survey of a sample of 369 participants. To this end, a questionnaire was used for collecting data. The Chi-square test was used to analyse data and to test the hypotheses of the study. The findings revealed that educators (teachers) differed significantly with regard to their experiences in implementing the NCS. The findings also indicated that gender, age, teaching experience and qualification had no influence on the educators’ experiences in implementing the NCS. The findings further revealed that educators differed in the extent to which they generally found implementing the NCS to be stressful. Furthermore, the findings revealed that except for qualification, educators’ biographical variables (gender, age, and teaching experience) had no significant influence on the extent to which educators generally found implementing the NCS to be stressful. INTRODUCTION Prior to democracy in 1994, the South Afri- can education system was divided along racial lines which resulted in unequal distribution of resources between historically white and black schools. Historically white schools tended to be well resourced compared to black schools. Soon after the installation of a democratically elected government in 1994 the Ministry of Edu- cation introduced a White paper on education and training in 1995. The White paper provided a policy framework for the development of a new curriculum in the post-apartheid South Africa and also proposed the development of alterna- tive curriculum based on the principles of ac- cess, redress, equity, credibility, quality and ef- ficiency thus transforming the curriculum in or- der to address the inequalities of the past (De- partment of Education 1995). Taole (2015) posits that a curriculum reform was important for South Africa in order to adapt to changing world and to improve quality and equity. Mohaeka and Mahao (2015) argue that global patterns of edu- cational change have been one of the major rea- sons for development of new education policies in many countries worldwide. This initiative re- sulted in the introduction of the curriculum framework that was to introduce outcomes- based education (OBE) in the education sys- tem. This curriculum framework called Curricu- lum 2005 (C2005) was introduced in 1997 (De- partment of Education 1997). C2005 was a radi- cal move away from the school curriculum of the apartheid dispensation which was seen to be irrelevant since it was geared to the needs of minorities (Pretorius 1998: viii; Jansen and Christie 1999:145; Blignaut 2008: 101). C2005 became the first major curriculum statement of the post democratic South Africa, deliberately intended to simultaneously overturn the legacy of apartheid education and take South Africa into the 21 st century. However, the failed plan to implement C2005 from 1998 to 2005 led to its revision in 2001. Above all, Hofmeyr (2010) em- phasises that C2005 was problematic in both its approach and implementation as too much was on acquisition of skills without sufficient con- tent knowledge. Subsequently the simplified, strengthened and streamlined version of C2005 was called the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) Grades R-9 (schools) (Depart- ment of Education 2001), and later called the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) Grades R- 9 (Department of Education 2002). Besides the introduction of C2005 and the RNCS in the General Education and Training (GET) band (Grades R-9 schools), the curricu-