Constraints to effective planning and implementation of workers' education in teacher unions: a case of Zambia national unions of teachers.
Date
2013-12-10
Authors
Nalishebo, Litau
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Abstract
This dissertation looks at the constraints to effective planning and implementation of workers’ education programmes in Zambia National Union of Teachers (ZNUT).The purpose of the study was to identify constraints to effective planning and implementation of workers’ education in ZNUT and suggest ways of overcoming them.The objectives of the study were: to analyse how the organisational structure affected the planning and implementation of workers’ education training programmes;to establish whether or not teacher members participated in planning and prioritising their training needs;to determine whether or not the procedures and criteria used in the teacher selection process of workers’ education programmes assisted members to participate;to investigate the effectiveness of the modes of publicity used in the publicity of workers’ education programmes; and to establish whether or not the logistics involved in the planning and implementation of the programmes affected member participation. The study used a descriptive design and used the descriptive statistics to present data. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and self administered questionnaires. Information was obtained from two ZNUT officials and the Director of Workers’ Education. Other sources were 100 teachers, 10headteachers, 10 chairpersons of the ‘five- man committee’(each five-man committee was made up of five teachers headed by a chair person.These committeesrepresented ZNUT in the school). Teachers were selected using the simple random sampling procedure and the other sets of population were selected using purposive sampling procedures.The findings revealed a number of constraints faced by planners and participants to the programmes. The first major finding was that, due to the hierarchical arrangement of the offices, programmes were either delayed or abandoned. Secondly, it was found out that there was non involvement of stakeholders and trainings were insufficient and irrelevant. This resulted in low memberparticipation in the workers’ education training programmes. Thirdly, there was lack of coordination amongst officers involved in workers’ education trainings which had resulted in inconsistency. Fourthly,there wasinadequate funding which had resulted in ineffective planning and implementation of programmes. Lastly, there wasno monitoring and evaluation of the programmes which had resulted in ineffective and inefficiency implementation of the programmes.The following recommendations were made:ZNUT should decentralise workers’ education training programmes so that power and responsibilities could be shared amongst the executive officers and all stakeholders; there should be massive mobilisation of stakeholder participation by ZNUT in order to improve on the low member participation; in order to improve on the effectiveness of the programmes, ZNUT should increase the funding for the training programmes from 30% to 50% and the money should be paid directly to the implementing office; and ZNUT should introduce monitoring and evaluation systems of programmes in order to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the training programmes.
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Keywords
Teachers' unions. , Trade-Unions and education.