Apart from the direct impact on teachers and students involved with the research, within Swaziland the project has influenced the current National Examinations through intensive contact with the examiner. The findings of the project have contributed to the current discussion in the National Science Panel towards revision of the secondary science curriculum. A project researcher has been invited to present the philosophy of the science with a technological approach, the lesson structure and the experiences with the use of the Matsapha lessons at the first of a series of workshops for the relevant committee of the Science Panel. At further meetings, the strategies used for teacher involvement in the development of the materials, and the INSET strategies used for the induction of new teachers will be shared.
Resulting from the current project, the Swaziland Ministry of Education has suggested the initiation of a pilot project to develop contextualised lesson materials specifically focused on linking science teaching with Swazi industry. They wish then to include both formal large and small scale industrial technologies and informal and indigenous production methods. The results of such a project will feed into the current curriculum review. A project document based on experiences with the development of the Matsapha materials drawing on expertise from the Universities of Swaziland, York and Cape Coast (Ghana) has been submitted and funding obtained from the Rockefeller Foundation, Nairobi. Thus, the outcomes of the current project on the technological approach to science will be consolidated.
The Matsapha materials are currently being used as exemplar materials in pre-service and in-service teacher training programmes, and for post-graduate programmes for curriculum developers at several institutions in Southern Africa, e.g. the Universities of Botswana, Dares-Salaam, Durban-Westville, Lesotho, Swaziland, Western-Cape and Zambia, and several NGO in-service programmes within South Africa. Some institutions in Europe which focus on science education in Southern Africa, such as the University of Leeds and the Free University of Amsterdam have shown a similar interest.
Within South Africa several NGO groups involved in teacher in-service, such as the Centre for Advancement of Mathematics and Science Education (CASME) at the University of Natal, and those involved in teacher-based materials development such as the Science Curriculum Initiative for South Africa (SCISA) based at the University of Durban-Westville have utilised strategies shown to be effective in this research project. In addition, contacts have been established with material development groups in South America and the Caribbean who intend using approaches to materials development and in-service which have been tested in this project.
The project has also influenced an EU-feasibility study into regional collaboration within Southern Africa in the area of science education, in that the method of teacher development through materials production has gained considerable prominence.
