Office of the Dean: Education
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Browsing Office of the Dean: Education by Author "Jita, L. C."
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Item Open Access School clusters as sites for instructional leadership: a case of the better schools programme of Zimbabwe(University of the Free State, 2015-07) Makaye, Jeriphanos; Jita, L. C.English: Inter-school collaborations or clustering has a long history, dating back to the 1940s in Nepal and Great Britain and it has spread across many parts of the world. Zimbabwe is no exception to this trend of adopting inter-school collaborations as a reform strategy for improving teaching and learning in schools. This innovation, which was initially meant to bring together disadvantaged rural schools, has spread to include urban schools. Despite its promise, however, the utility of clusters or inter-school collaborations in terms of improving the quality and efficacy of teaching and learning remains a matter of scholarly debate and inquiry. The present study adds insights to the debates on the utility of clusters for improving teaching and learning in schools. The efforts to improve teaching and learning in schools are what this study defines as instructional leadership. Whilst many studies have been conducted to understand instructional leadership practices at either the school or district levels, very few of these studies have explored instructional leadership within a school collaborative or cluster specifically. This study took the challenge by exploring whether and how the Better Schools Programme of Zimbabwe (BSPZ), an example of a school cluster or collaborative, serves as a site for instructional leadership for the participating schools and teachers. The investigation took a pragmatic stance and adopted a mixed methods approach in order to take advantage of the strengths of both the qualitative and quantitative approaches. Using a multiple case study of four BSPZ clusters in the Masvingo district of Zimbabwe, the study employed a sequential explanatory mixed methods design where a sample of 101 participants responded to a questionnaire on the range and depth of instructional leadership practices and artefacts that are used by their clusters, as well as their perspectives on the utility of clusters for improving teaching and learning. In the qualitative phase of the study, purposively selected groups of participants that included two heads of school (or principals), two teacher leaders and two ordinary class teachers from two of the selected clusters were interviewed and observed. The qualitative phase was designed to confirm the participants’ perspectives and get an inside picture of how instructional leadership operates in practice within the clusters. The study has established that school clusters do carry out some activities that qualify to be classified as instructional leadership for the teachers in the participating schools. The drive for the instructional leadership programme of the clusters, however, is very moderate at best, and considerably weak in terms of its conception and influence on teaching and learning in schools. The dominant practices of instructional leadership at the cluster level include the administration of cluster tests, supervision of classes, as well as the conduct of some professional development workshops for the teachers. Significantly, the study also established that instructional leadership within the clusters is sometimes distributed, albeit by default, to include teacher leaders and other non-formal school leaders. The incentives for participation in general and for leadership of teaching and learning within the clusters are rather poor to non-existent, something that needs the urgent attention of educational leaders and policymakers in Zimbabwe. The study concludes by arguing that school clusters, especially the BSPZ clusters, are in a relatively good position to provide opportunities for instructional leadership to schools and teachers even though it is inevitable that their leadership activities will vary based on the will and capacity of each cluster. The study thus recommends the involvement of local school authorities, such as districts and provincial authorities in providing much needed support to ensure effective instructional leadership within the school clusters. Further research on the agendas of school clusters and how they are carried out in different contexts (and countries) is needed in order to understand how it may be possible to institutionalise instructional leadership practices within such school collaboratives or clusters.Item Open Access Teachers’ concerns about the implementation of the new curriculum in Lesotho(University of the Free State, 2017) Tafai, Mapapali Gladys; Jita, L. C.; Tlali, M. F.The Lesotho government has recently developed and published an inclusive curriculum and assessment policy as an approach to reducing the unconstructive pressure of examinations on the education system. The policy integrates curriculum with assessment. Some studies on curriculum implementation in Lesotho have shown that although the government made efforts to supply some of the teaching and learning materials to the primary schools, these have been either inadequate or unresponsive to the local priorities and needs of the schools. Thus, teachers are likely to struggle with the implementation of this newly proposed curriculum. The purpose of this study was to explore Lesotho primary school teachers’ concerns regarding the adoption of the integrated curriculum in Lesotho. Teachers are likely to have different concerns about any kind of change to their classroom practice. Their concerns can also be expected to differ based on such factors as the demographic characteristics, educational level and experience. The teachers’ feelings and motivations concerning the newly introduced school curriculum in Lesotho shaped the level of implementation observed in the present study. This study used the concerns-based adoption model (CBAM) as its conceptual framework. CBAM is an analytic instrument that focuses on how people, such as teachers inter alia respond to change. CBAM indentifies the seven stages of concern through which teachers could be involved as they collaborate in the implementation of new innovations as; awareness, information, personal concerns, management, consequences, collaboration and refocusing. The stages of concern questionnaire (SoCQ) as part of CBAM was employed to explore the stages of concern of the primary school teachers in Lesotho concerning the implementation of the integrated curriculum, their patterns and variations. SoCQ consists of 35 items selected to represent the different types of concerns that teachers have as they are first introduced to an educational innovation. Teachers respond on a 7-point Likert-type scale. The findings are reported in two articles that address different research questions. The first article describes the various dimensions of the concerns and their extent within a sample of primary school teachers. The second article describes how these concerns align with the teachers’ characteristics such as teaching experience, educational qualification, gender, age, integrated curriculum experience and training. It also presents the relative strength of each factor on teachers’ concerns regarding the integrated curriculum. The first set of findings suggests that primary school teachers in Lesotho are aware of the integrated curriculum although they need more information on its implications for their practice. However, their concerns are strongest on the issues of collaboration (P= 80), refocusing (P= 79) and personal adequacy (P=72).This is an indication that primary school teachers are working in cooperation with each other regarding the best practice for the implementation of the integrated curriculum. The second set of findings suggest that the female teachers were mostly focused on informational (M=18.16, SD=6.09), collaboration (M=28.37, SD=5.25), and refocusing stages (M=28.44, SD 4.95) than their male counterparts, whose major concerns were more at the awareness stage (M = 23.38, SD =.6.20) compared to females (M =22.93, SD = 6.66). It was also observed that the older teachers were less concerned at the informational stage and more at the collaboration stage as they do not want to move from their comfort zones. The first findings indicated a high percentile score at collaboration (P = 80), refocusing (P = 79) and personal adequacy (P =72).The high percentiles means indicted the high concerns of the primary school teachers. The paper concludes that the primary school teachers have responded positively to the process of new curriculum implementation. There is a need however to conduct further research that involve larger samples from different schools, and possibly from diverse contexts to further explore the findings of the present study. The second set of findings suggest that female teachers show more concerns at the informational, collaboration and refocusing stages of concerns as compared to the male teachers who showed more concern at the awareness stage. This means that gender may play a vital role in the success or failure of innovation at schools. The study concludes that there is positive relationship between teachers’ concerns and demographics though the male teachers seem to have little knowledge regarding integrated curriculum. The study suggests that more follow up workshops and monitoring sessions are needed to improve the implantation of the new integrated curriculum in Lesotho. Again, the findings indicated that age contribute to the manner at which primary school teachers adopt the integrated curriculum. It is suggested therefore that the training sessions and follow up workshops should consider the specific needs of individual teachers based on their different age groups for example.