An assessment of the extent of community participation in teacher education through education boards
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Date
2011-05-17
Authors
Makwaya, Mpasa C
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Abstract
The study begins by giving a brief background to the statement of the problem.
The background highlights the educational policy changes that the Zambian
Government has taken before and after independence to respond to the need to make
education relevant to the changing development needs of the country. The current policy of decentralisation in education is guided by three aims:
i) Take decision - making closer to the point of delivery where action is taking
place.
ii) Adopt an implementation design that allows active community participation in
the delivery of educational services and in making decisions in the use and management of resources flowing into colleges.
iii) Change extensively the existing power and authority structure.To achieve these broad aims, active community participation in teacher education was considered cardinal. Hence the establishment of education boards to provide a mechanism for this type of community involvement. The focus of the study was provided by the statement of the problem, and the objectives, hypotheses and questions generated from this statement of the problem. The statement of the problem highlights the need to undertake the study in light of past experience, which revealed that active community participation in educational governance has not been successful in Zambia. The study had six objectives: (i) Establish the extent to which objectives of education boards were being met in teachers' colleges, (ii) Establish the extent to which communities were using education boards to participate in teachers, education
7.There was no indication that the education board members participated in decision-making of a kind that would affect the colleges significantly.
The major conclusions were:
i) The education board at the two colleges did not enable the community to
participate actively in the delivery of educational services and in making decisions in the use and management of resources flowing into the colleges.
ii) Expected outcomes such as transparency, accountability and sense of ownership had not begun to show to any significant extent,
iii) There was no consensus among stakeholders on how the education
board could fulfil its responsibilities.
The study makes a number of recommendations that include:
(i) Further research, to include all primary teacher training colleges, should be done to assess the effectiveness of education boards as a mechanism for active community participation in teacher education
i) To give the Education Board real power over staff, The Ministry of Education should provide for the appointment of The Principal by the Education Board.
ii) Specific guidelines to allow community involvement in teacher education curriculum design should be drawn by the Ministry of
Education
iii) Funding to education boards should improve so that they can operate
effectively.curriculum and policy making, (iii) Identify constraints board members faced in carrying out their responsibilities (iv) Determine how constraints education board members faced impacted on community involvement in teacher education, (v) Establish the extent to which boards were able to mobilise non-governmental resources for both teacher education and community participation in teacher education, (vi) Analyse the comparative advantages of urban and rural boards in involving the community in education boards.To establish how far education boards were fulfilling their objective and expected outcomes, education boards at Mufulira and Chalimbana Teachers' Colleges were studied The findings of the study were:
1 Education Board committees had been created at both Mufurila and Chalimbana
Teachers' Colleges.
2 The composition of education boards is representative of all stakeholders in
teacher education.
3 Although stakeholders interviewed welcomed the introduction of education
boards, they said the boards were not operating as they had hoped they would.
4 There had not been sufficient sensitisation of some stakeholders about the
rationale for establishing education boards.
5 There was insufficient and erratic funding to the education boards.
6 The Ministry of Education had not been supervising the education boards
regularly enough to influence their effective functioning.
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Keywords
Educational Clause -- Zambia , Educational Policy -- Zambia , Decentralization -- Educational policy