Voices confined to classrooms: the marginalised status of teachers in curriculum development in Lusaka, Zambia.
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Date
2018
Authors
Mwanza, Christine
Mulenga, Innocent Mutale
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Multi-disciplinary Journal of Language and Social Sciences Education
Abstract
Curriculum development for Early Childhood, Primary
and Secondary School levels in Zambia has received
much attention since the revision which commenced in
2013 and gradually implemented untill 2017. Despite
the Curriculum Development Centre (CDC), which is
the main institution placed with the responsibility of
curriculum development, claiming that the Zambian
school curriculum is developed through a consultative
and participatory approach through course and subject
panels where teachers and other stakeholders are
represented, there has been no empirical evidence
to suggest the extent to which teachers, who are the
major implementers of the same curricular, have been
actively involved in the development process. This
study, therefore, sought to establish whether secondary
school teachers in Lusaka were adequately and
actively involved in the secondary school curriculum
development process. The concurrent embedded
design of the mixed methods approach was employed
with the qualitative approach dominating the study
while the quantitative was used to add detail. Data
from secondary school teachers was collected using
questionnaires and focus group discussions while
interview guides were used for Head teachers and
curriculum specialists. Data collected from interviews
and questionnaires were analyzed using themes and
descriptive statistics into significant patterns so as
to easily interpret and understand it. The findings of
the study clearly suggested that secondary school
teachers were dissatisfied with the existing practice
of curriculum development which insignificantly
involved them.
Description
Keywords
Curriculum development. , Teacher involvement , Curriculum implementation.