Teachers present in school but absent in class: utilization and ‘silent erosion’ of learning time in the implementation of the curriculum in Mongu district of Zambia.
Date
2019
Authors
Mulenga, Innocent Mutale
Lubasi, Ireen Monde
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
European Journal of Education Studies
Abstract
Curriculum implementation in Zambia is faced with a lot of challenges ranging from
poor funding, lack of appropriate and adequate teaching and learning resources, lack of
qualified teachers in some subjects such as computer studies and sciences, poor school
infrastructure especially in most rural areas, low teacher morale and lack of specialized
teaching and learning resources for learners with special educational needs. However,
one important curriculum implementation resource that research seems to ignore is
learning time is utilized. The purpose of this study was to examine secondary school
teachers’ utilization of learning time in the implementation of the curriculum. The
researchers used a concurrent embedded design of the mixed methods research
approach. A questionnaire and interview guides were used to collect data from teachers
and secondary school head teachers respectively. While a focus group discussion guide
was used to collect data from learners. Data was then analyzed using themes and
descriptive statistics. The findings revealed that although teachers would be present in
school, they spent most of the time attending to non-classroom teaching activities such
as organizing learners in sports, staff meetings and invigilation of national
examinations. It was also revealed that the times that they would be in class, teachers
would most of the times start the lesson about eight minutes late. Researchers in this
study concluded that several non-teaching factors affected effective utilization of
learning time in the implementation of the curriculum. It was therefore; recommended
that there should be proper review of how learning time was being managed in the
schools in the province.
Description
Keywords
Time loss. , Curriculum implementation. , Learning time.