Creative thinking skills potential in Zambia’s secondary schools of Lusaka district: a study of grade 12 private and public school learners.

Abstract

The national education curriculum of Zambia’s secondary schools, which follows an Outcome-Based approach to education, has prioritised, among other desired competencies, the development of creative thinking skills in every learner, as the goal of the leaning process. This study aimed at reaching an understanding of the extent to which the education process in secondary schools of Lusaka district is supporting the development of creative thinking skills in learners. In order to assess creative thinking skills of secondary school learners, this study utilised a comparative study design under the quantitative approach. Data was collected from a sample of 180 students from six private and public secondary schools within Lusaka district, using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) figural form-A. The findings of this study have revealed that, grade 12 secondary school learners, in both public and private schools, had lower levels of creative thinking skills. Further, school type was found to matter in the creative thinking potential of the learner; as private school learners displayed higher levels of creative thinking skills than did public school learners. This showed that even though secondary school students learn under the same national curriculum, their display of creative thinking skills depends on the kind of immediate environment they are exposed to during their teaching-learning process. However, the study found that gender was not a significant factor in creative thinking potential of learners in that boys and girls revealed about the same levels of creativity. Based on the findings, this study recommends that the Ministry of General Education (MoGE) through the Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) explore methods that will enhance the learning process so that it can support the nurturing and development of creative thinking skills of the learning individual. In addition, the study recommends that further studies be conducted in order to find out what is making private school learners display better levels of creative thinking skills than those of public schools.