Masters Degrees (School of Education Management, Policy, and Comparative Education)

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Browsing Masters Degrees (School of Education Management, Policy, and Comparative Education) by Subject "Lesotho integrated curriculum"

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    The use of professional learning communities to monitor the implementation of the Lesotho integrated curriculum
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Rapeli, Ratsele Edward; Tsotetsi, Cias
    In Lesotho, like in other countries where educational policies are reformed, the government of Lesotho, through the Ministry of Education and Training, developed and published the Curriculum and Assessment Policy 2009 (CAP2009). The new policy aimed to establish an integrated curriculum (Education for individual and social development) because the previous curriculum seemed to fail to address the challenges faced by the young Basotho generations. When this new policy was implemented in 2013, some of the important aspects, such as training of the School Management Teams, were not considered. Consequently, these people encountered several challenges when monitoring the implementation of the integrated curriculum. Most current studies about integrated curricula are based on the challenges encountered by teachers and the strategies that can be applied. There is a limited study focused on the challenges faced by School Management Teams. The main function of the SMTs is to spend much of their time monitoring the implementation of the new policy so that they find and use suitable strategies such as professional learning communities. This study aims to use the professional learning communities as a form of continuous professional development to enhance the monitoring of the Lesotho integrated curriculum. It seems that the SMTs, as people responsible for monitoring the implementation,have sufficient knowledge of monitoring the new policy. The literature indicates that the challenges encountered by the SMTs in Lesotho in monitoring CAP 2009 were encountered by other countries regionally and internationally when they were monitoring the implementation of the new educational reforms. This participatory action research was conducted with a formulated team of school principal, deputy school principal, senior teacher and two teachers of the same school as people with ideas about implementing the integrated curriculum. The team scheduled the activities that needed to be performed to address the monitoring challenges. The findings provided that to address the challenges of monitoring the implementation of the Lesotho integrated curriculum; the SMTs should schedule suitable time, involve parents of learners in the education, assess learners as the policy provided, develop a shared vision amongst other stakeholders, make resources available, monitor and provide teachers with feedback after monitoring their work.