Investigating curriculum transformation pathways in technological planning schools: Learning from conventional planning programmes and beyond

The South African higher education terrain has undergone massive transformation through curriculum transformation involving programme alignment. There are three technical town planning schools out of the eleven town planning schools in South Africa and these were the hardest hit by the curriculum changes. These technical planning schools phased out technical programmes, and introduced bachelor and honours degrees. This paper investigates the possible pathways of curriculum transformation for technical planning schools critical to the retention of practical skills training within the new programmes. The paper adopted a phenomenological case study research design and applied the qualitative research approach. Content analyses were used to derive meaning from the collected data. Preliminary findings reveal three possible pathways that could be adopted by the technical planning schools to ensure that new curriculated degrees produce graduates with practical town planning skills. The new degree programmes that replaced technical programmes need to place graduates and universities at par with conventional universities in terms of recognition and quality. Pursuit to that, the paper recommends the infusion of the uniqueness of the phased technical programmes in the new degree programmes to deliver competitive, marketable qualifications that are preferred by students and valued by industry.