09 ALUMBRADO PÚBLICO

Botswana Government (2005:12) believes that the nature and quality of Social Studies teacher education and training for citizenship education is a key element in expanding the education system to materialise a democratic dispensation. This section therefore presents participants perceptions on the adequacy of Social Studies teacher training towards DCE. To achieve this task, I took an initiative to conduct interviews on participants on the sample to posit their views on the curriculum and its responsiveness to DCE. The findings views are eloquently presented below:

On the question of the adequacy of the teacher training curriculum towards DCE, One student- teacher said:

No. I would have loved each concept of democratic citizenship education taught separately, e.g. civic education, governance, human rights, civil rights and responsibilities because the integrated approach does not give enough treatment of the ideals of citizenship education (C1SP8).

Another student-teachers (C1SP6) said that:

Social Studies curriculum does not have enough content that appeals to DCE, the introduction of

citizenship education at year 1 of our training is fine but there after citizenship education aspects are infused into other topics and do not come out clearly. Because of this arrangement students fail to get

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When asked what was missing from the Social Studies curriculum relative to DCE, the above participant opined that:

Among others practical activity is missing from our curriculum because citizenship is about knowing and execution of knowledge. I also feel deeper education on democracy and voting processes/issues on elections are also missing from the curriculum and this to me is a serious weakness on the curriculum because you cannot confidently talk of citizenship education when you fail to expose students to deeper issues on democracy.

The student took the matter further by showing that the fact that Social Studies students are not found in Student Representative Council activities speaks volumes on its own. To him if Social Studies students were fully empowered through DCE transmitted through Social Studies they would be on the forefront in Student Representative Council activities in the college. In a similar fashion, another student argued that there is need for lecturers to go deep on DCE topics as oppose to surface teaching they currently do. Furthermore, he raised the need for authorities, in particular curriculum developers to consider expanding the scope of citizenship education in the Social Studies syllabus (C1SP2).

College lecturers also unanimously agreed that Social Studies teacher training curriculum does not have adequate content matter on citizenship education. For instance participants (C1L1,2&3) all indicated that citizenship education curriculum is not adequate. Lecturers pointed out that citizenship education is only offered as an introduction and that it lacks understanding of multicultural aspects and the nature of a citizen Botswana wants to produce as a nation. Lecturers also argued that the Social Studies curriculum for teacher training was not adequate since it is deficient in the practical segment. One Lecturer (C1L1) in particular felt that the curriculum does not give student-teachers a chance to put to work and test what they learn in class in the form of visits to relevant institutions:

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Sir there is need for student-teachers to be given time out into the immediate community and exercise what they have learnt in class so as to put theory into practice. This endeavour will allow students to examine the relevance of the curriculum in terms of its responsiveness to day to day experiences in our community. This to me is real Social Studies curriculum for DCE. The lecturer emphasised.

Other than efforts to have practical activity, the lecturer argued that if the status-quo was to remain learners will consider citizenship education to be a theory than a practical engagement. This would be an unfortunate eventuality.

From a different perspective, another student-teacher, said:

The Social Studies syllabus in my view has enough content Mr Oats. The only weakness according is the way it is taught. My feeling is that the methods, approaches and strategies used to teach DCE topics do not appeal to citizenship education as lecturer talk of interactive methods but use the lecturer method in all their lessons. This practice defeats the whole purpose of education for citizenship (C1SP2).

The student above argued that lecturers overemphasise active and interactive methods for Social Studies and citizenship education but fail themselves to showcase those methods. Simply put, during the ‘methodology course’ lessons’ students are exposed to diverse child-centred techniques of teaching which are suitable for citizenship education but the lecturers do not teach the very CE topics themselves through those techniques.

5.2.3 Appropriateness of teaching strategies for democratic citizenship education

Unless democratic habits of thought and actions are part of the fibre of the people, political democracy is insecure (Jotia, 2011). This expression paves way for a presentation of findings on the objective which wanted to find out the extent to which colleges of education adequately equip student teachers with diverse teaching strategies to enable them to teach citizenship at

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primary schools through Social Studies. The objective emanated from the outlook that DCE is unique and therefore requires more active methods of teaching.

When asked to indicate the teaching methods and strategies commonly used in their classes that are suitable for the development of good citizenship, one student (C1SP3) said: Inquiry, because

it reinforces the values of democratic citizenship and hence can be used to inquire on the challenges faced by the country at large.

A number of students’ interviewees indicated that peer teaching seems suitable. They indicated that lecturers usually give them topics in groups to research and present and this is in line with the demands of citizenship education by reason that trainees are exposed to enquiry on various issues. Additionally, the discovery method was mentioned by participants (C1SP6, 8&9) but participants could not elaborate on how the discovery method of teaching unites well with citizenship education. This episode made me suspect that the participants were not well-grounded on the discovery method. It also appeared from the discussions that lecturers encourage elements of cooperation, participation in class activity, group work and these are elements that support togetherness among students and are elements of citizenship education. This is highly applauded.

Lecturers were asked to indicate the best way to prepare the children of Botswana for good citizenship. One of them had this to say:

Provision of education sir so that they can acquire the knowledge, skills and proper attitudes, but also engage them in practical aspects of citizenship. For this reason I use group work, enquiry, project and debate in my classes to teach citizenship education topics in a way to encourage doing on the part of students (C1L3).

The lecturer went on to report that these methods are capable of training students to be responsible citizens in the society as they put them at the centre of learning and information seeking. Additionally, she indicated that during lessons she encourage social participation, social skills and problem solving. Furthermore, she felt that educational campaigns for citizenship education should be intensified through various ways and which school and colleges should have

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as part of their training package practical assignments to give learners a feel of citizenship responsibilities. This development will probably help student-teachers develop participative habits in the affairs of their nation. In the eventual, student-teachers will carry the practice of using active strategies of teaching citizenship education topics while in the field as practising teachers.

5.2.4 Challenges of transmitting democratic citizenship education

This research perceived to find out the challenges faced by colleges of education on the sample in their endeavour to transmit DCE. This section is on those challenges. The findings of this study have shown that the transmission of DCE is faced with numerous challenges, among these the absence of practical orientation, time constraints, inadequate resources, undemocratic college governance, lack of role model Social Studies lecturers, lack of use of active methods of teaching and superficial coverage of citizenship education topics.

Lecturers were asked to state the challenges that they encounter in the preparation of student teachers on DCE and how they overcome them. One lecturer (C1L3) mentioned that making citizenship education practical is a challenge for them since citizenship education sounds practical and interesting during teaching but cannot be applied in the immediate:

In other words the fact that the curriculum or colleges schedules do not allow hands on activities on citizenship education is a challenge and an impediment to effective transmission of DCE. She lamented.

Along the same line she indicated that time is a challenge as well because there is no enough time to take students out to apply what they learn in the classroom. When asked if she has anything else to add, the lecturer hastened to emphasise the practical element by saying that it is high time students are practically involved in societal issues than just being given facts. When asked whether she has anything to add she said:

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My wish is that colleges come to a point where they have agreements with some organisation or institutions to engage students on job-placements at certain times. This will allow our students to apply what they learn in the classroom practically. Am thinking of strategically placing our students for job shadowing in institutions such as, the council (municipality), village development committees, National Parks and various Non- Governmental Organisatins such as human rights organisations and offcourse also with various government departments (C1L3).

Students reported that inadequacy of educational material at the college frustrates DCE. This challenge was mentioned more often by majority of participants. One student said:

The problem is that our college library is empty in terms of educational material capable of raising well-informed DCE teachers. There are books and other sources in the library but they are far from enough, hence I used the word empty. Additionally the internet system is hampered by inadequate computers in both the library and college computer lap to accommodate college population (C1SP1).

In a similar mode, another student (C1SP10) eloquently said:

My concern is that lecturers do not go deeply in their teaching of DCE concepts, they just teach us concepts almost as we received them at secondary school level. Probably this is because they too do not have exposure to a lot of educational material relevant for DCE.

There is a general concern amongst interviewees about democratic practice at college. One student claimed that, “lack of democracy in the college at large is the main pain to the spread of DCE” (C1SP5). Along the same fashion another student strongly asserted that:

The main factor is that the college itself is not democratic, college leadership is dictatorial, students’ views are never considered, the student representative council is a toothless dog, and so this situation hinders our conceptualisation of citizenship education ideals. We often wonder what democracy really means.

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The above participant who was becoming emotional when talking about democracy at her college further complained about the annual practice of ‘lecturer’ and ‘course’ evaluation by students. He lamented that the process is termed democratic and a way of involving students into the running of the college but assortment of weaknesses as it is used against students. He indicated that the administration of the evaluation exercise is preceded by the very lecturers in their classes. In that way lecturers know students’ hand writings and can hence track down those who mark them down. He further lamented thus.

The bad part of this arrangement is that analyses of findings are also done by the very lecturers and this kills the whole effort because you cannot beat your own finger. In other words, there is a chance that lecturers may hide some negative reports about them when presenting final analysis of the evaluation and this defeat the whole purpose of the exercise (C1SP5).

The challenge to made Social Studies/citizenship education more practical was strongly raised by lecturers. One of them (C1L2) argued that the use of passive methods of teaching in citizenship education lessons defeats the whole purpose of education for democratic citizenry. The lecturer indicated that citizenship education demands active and practical approaches and these are deficient in Social Studies classrooms in most cases. For this reason the lecturer raised the need for colleges and in particular Social Studies Departments to find ways of involving student- teachers in communal issues and activities rather than giving them raw facts. However, the same lecturer said that there is no time for practical activities because the syllabus is overloaded.