Critiquing the teaching of history in Zambian secondary schools through Basil Bernstein's lens: a study of selected schools in Lusaka district.
Date
2023
Authors
Machila, Nisbert
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The University of Zambia
Abstract
This study sought to critique the teaching of history in Zambian secondary schools. The study used Basil Bernstein’s theoretical framework on power and control. This study used a mixed-method approach in order to get a deeper insight into understanding the teaching of history in Zambian secondary schools in Lusaka district. The research design used in this study was a convergent parallel mixed method and purposive sample the participants. The study focused on six schools in Lusaka district, of which two were government, two private and two Missionary Grant Aided. A total of 48 teachers and 120 pupils were selected. The sample also included one curriculum specialist, one examination specialist and one standards officer, giving us three. Data were collected using questionnaires, interviews, lesson observations and document study. Thus, the first part of the study comprised 177 respondents. In order to answer the questions on significant differences between the Content-based Curriculum and Outcome-based learner performance, a total of 8,276 grade 12 history learners who sat for the national secondary school certificate in the selected six secondary schools were used. In order to analyse quantitative data, descriptive statistics were used to analyse the collected data using SPSS software, and qualitative data were analysed using themes that emerged. The findings revealed that teachers disliked using lesson plans as they stated that lesson plans were time-consuming compared to lesson notes. The study revealed that long serving teachers demonstrated more and better understanding of the syllabus. Several challenges were identified from studying how history is taught; the current format for the final national examination encourages memorisation of the content. As noted in Bernstein's lens, the selection of content taught in the classroom does not allow learners and teachers to have any power and control. In addition, the current history syllabus does not follow the horizontal and vertical discoursed notion of Bernstein. Hence, learners start with World history, which they are not very familiar with and end with African history, which they are most familiar with. Further, the teaching of history in secondary schools faces a problem of periodisation, which is centred mostly on European accounts. Additionally, the current syllabus fails to take into account gender sensitive content as it is centred on male accounts. On the Pedagogical practices utilised in teaching history to ensure effective teaching, the study findings indicate that most teachers used question and answer and the lecture method as one of the easy approaches. The study results show that history learners performed statistically better on Outcome-based education (M 66.24 and SD 31.24) compared to Content-based education (M 28.53, SD20.36). The study also revealed that demographic factors such as type of syllabus, gender, and school type were statistically significant in their contribution to learners' academic performance. Another interesting finding of the study was that private and grant-aided schools outperformed government schools in both syllabus types due to good governance and human resource management, availability of teaching/learning resources, good pupil-teacher ratio, well trained and experienced teachers, teachers' motivation through awards and better infrastructure development. The study recommended the need for history teachers to use modern pedagogies in order to improve the teaching/learning process in secondary schools. Secondly, MOE, CDC and Secondary School Stakeholders should revisit the senior secondary school History syllabus for it to respond to the Zambian changing dynamics such as a shift from emphasis Eurocentric views to Zambianised History. Thirdly, The MOE through CDC should evaluate the implementation of the OBE in Zambian secondary schools in order to identify its failures and successes for better future policy implementation.
Description
Thesis of Doctor of Philosophy in History Education.
Keywords
Research Subject Categories::HUMANITIES and RELIGION::History and philosophy subjects::History subjects , Research Subject Categories::HUMANITIES and RELIGION::History and philosophy subjects::History subjects::History