Call For Education Paradigm Shift

THE introduction of National Standards calls for a paradigm shift in the way education is to be carried out in our country.

The Directorate: Programmes and Quality Assurance (PQA) in the Ministry of Education took a bold step to introduce National Standards in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools and to ensure that schools are evaluated on the basis of such standards to also help them to improve with regard to the utilisation of resources. Although many workshops have been conducted to educate teachers on the requirements of the National Standards, there are still problems encountered when it comes to the implementation thereof. School managers who were trained on how to implement the National Standards are not doing enough to ensure that the teachers really stick to the standards in their everyday work. Some of the reasons why National Standards are not being adhered to are:
•Retrogression: some teachers still do not want to change. The need to do daily lesson preparations and marking learners’ written work regularly seem to be a difficult task to many teachers. Keeping the required number of files as per National standards is still a problem to some teachers. For many teachers, for as long as they go to class and be seen by learners and their principals, all is fine. They do not feel guilty of getting a salary at the end of the month though meaningful teaching does not take place in their classrooms.
•Misinterpretation of the National Standards: some teachers still do not understand the purpose of the National Standards and therefore find it difficult to use the standards. Teachers do not know how to set targets as a way of managing their own teaching by objectives. The teaching therefore becomes a routine process of just going to a classroom, feed learners with information, which in many cases they don’t understand, and leave.
•Inspectors of Education are not visiting schools to ensure that standards are adhered to. This might be attributed to the Inspector-schools ratio. Some Inspectors of Education have so many schools in their circuits that they cannot manage to visit all schools or monitor the implementation of the National Standards in the schools. Inspectors of Education mostly rely on RESE visits to assess whether the National Standards are being used effectively in schools or not.
•School visit recommendations are not implemented: Advisory Teachers and Inspectors of Education constitute Regional External School Evaluation (RESE) teams which normally visit schools and make recommendations to the schools regarding areas of improvement according to the reports based on key areas evaluated. Many a times such recommendations are not put to use, thus making the whole exercise of RESE a waste of resources.
•Many teachers still do not have a copy of the National Standards booklet: Principals of some schools have in many cases failed in their duty to make these copies available to the teachers because they either do not understand the importance thereof or they just do not want to share information with the teachers. Information filed but not used is meaningless.
•Lack of interest to learn among teachers: Some teachers are naturally self-demotivated and lack interest to keep abreast with trends in our education system. Such ignorance has resulted in many teachers still using outdated materials in their teaching. Advisory Teachers are just a phone call away but teachers still expect these officials to guess about the teachers’ needs in schools. Many of our regions have libraries where teachers can research for information, but teachers only visit libraries when searching for information when they are doing an assignment for IOL and the like. They don’t read materials in the libraries to enrich their minds with knowledge in their subject areas.
•No capacity building initiatives: teachers who are in the know about certain issues do not share their knowledge with others. This state of affairs results in schools becoming more wanting in terms of lack of knowledge. SUGGESTIONS:
•The National Standards must not be seen as a way of making things difficult for teachers and school administrators but rather as a way of standardising methods and procedures in order to ensure that quality is achieved in terms of teaching and learning as well as efficient utilisation of resources at schools. The Standards help the school and its stakeholders to set reasonable targets, to check how well the targets are achieved, to find out the aspects within the school which need to be improved, what actions to take in order to improve those aspects as well as scrutinising the current actions to see whether they are succeeding in addressing the needs of the school.
•Schools should look at Advisory Teachers and Inspectors of Education not as watchdogs of the Ministry of Education but rather as professionals who are there to advice them regarding what to do in order to improve the quality of education at schools. School principals must give proper orientation to new staff members to familiarise them with all national policy documents and help them to get settled in their new work environment. They need to have an induction programme as a compulsory item on their year calendars to help the new members of staff to fit in the new work environment.
•The recommendations made by Inspectors of Education and Subject Advisors are meaningless if they are left to collect dust. Use should be made of such recommendations to improve on the areas identified as needing improvement.
•Teachers who have more knowledge on certain issues must learn to share such with colleagues in order to build capacity within the schools.
•Cluster Centre Principals must be empowered and supported to train school principals within their clusters on how to implement and monitor National Standards. Remember: ‘it is how we adapt to the system and not how we change the system which leads to the deliverance of quality education’. Alex Kamwi Gwala Ohangwena Region