Constraints encountered by In-service Teachers in their professional development in Lusaka District
Date
2015-04-20
Authors
Haambula, Mutombo Lillian
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Abstract
This study was set out to establish constraints encountered by in-service teachers in their professional development in Lusaka district. The objectives of the study were: to establish the constraints encountered by in-service teachers in their professional development; and to identify measures to be put in place to address identified constraints. A case study research design was used in order to be able to describe the study units in details and gain more insight into the constraints in-service teachers encounter in their professional development (Kombo and Tromp, 2006). It also provided the background data for a larger study (Yin, 2003). The sample of this study was 280. The respondents comprised 56 Headteachers and 224 in-service teachers. The Headteachers were purposefully selected from the 56 targeted Basic Schools as they were a rich source of information. The 224 in-service teachers were selected using simple random sampling procedure. In this procedure, a rotary method was used to select the seven schools from each of the eight zones in Lusaka District and the four in-service teachers from each of the selected seven schools. This gave an equal and independent chance to everyone of being selected.
The data was collected by use of semi-structured questionnaires with open and closed-ended questions for both in-service teachers and Headteachers. The closed-ended questions helped as they eased the processing of research results and the open-ended questions helped in getting detailed information from the respondents. Therefore, the study used both quantitative and qualitative methods in collecting data from the respondents. Qualitative data was anlysed using a quick impressionist summary thus summarizing key findings, explanation, interpretation and conclusion (Kombo and Tromp, 2006). However, quantitative data was presented using pie charts and was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).
The findings revealed that, in-service teachers lacked support from the MOE financially as only five out of 224 in-service teachers were sponsored; teachers were not granted paid/unpaid study leave and were not being confirmed in time. The study therefore, recommended that, the Ministry of Education should be sponsoring, granting study leave, confirming in-service teachers in time and making it a mandate to letting them go for further studies every after a specified period of time.
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Keywords
Teachers-Training of-Zambia , Teachers-In-service training-Zambia