implementation, and possible remedies
The general finding was that community participation in curriculum implementation in its multifaceted form has not been easy to build and develop a more proactive culture of community participation. The philosophy of developing the capacity of community participation has not been evidenced by what was observed on the ground with a number of restrictive issues at play. These include the language of education, the unavailability of dialogical space, the polarised political situation, the closed-door policy by the teachers and the school heads, among others. Some of the problems could be addressed at local level while others require lobbying and government intervention to solve them.
The research findings indicated that the reality of community participation in curriculum implementation was hampered by the use of English as the language of education in Zimbabwe. Despite the provisions of the Education Amendment Act of 2006 that prior to form one, English, Shona or Ndebele may be used as the medium of instruction, the teachers used English at all the primary school levels. This, the research found, has remained a major challenge to effective participation by community members. Contributions by Mutasa (2006), Prah (2008) and Miti (2008) also lamented the situation where Africa has remained the only continent where the children go to school and are taught in a language other than their own. Gorinski and Fraser (2006) also observed that the language of education should be a language that all the stakeholders (teachers, school heads and community members) can comprehend, that is, a community-friendly language. From the research findings, generally the teachers and the school heads said that when the community members are to be invited to make a presentation in the classroom, obviously, they would be more comfortable with the mother tongue which is
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the most used language of communities, thus preventing their prospects of being invited by teachers. The onus of their participation tended to lie with teachers who valued English as a medium of instruction than mother tongue. The teachers seem to be guided by Rose’s (2000) thinking that the use of any other language which is not English creates instructional dead time where there is little or no learning taking place. It appears the problem is not on teachers’ shoulders alone but the government is to blame as well. It has failed to enforce the provisions of the 2006 Education Amendment Act.
The research findings also pointed to problems related to teacher priority area, which is for the pupils to pass examinations. It appears that anything that militate against that mission was dismissed. Singh (2010) indicated that community participation in curriculum implementation is hindered by the teachers’ desire for good results in examinations, and the pressure to cover the syllabus on time. What this might mean is that the teachers and the school heads need to shift from their fixed position of narrowly seeing curriculum implementation from an examination point of view. Furthermore, the research findings also revealed a mismatch between the language provision of the 2006 Education Amendment Act and the language of the examinations. All the internal and external examinations except Shona and Ndebele, are set in English. Therefore, if the teachers were to engage the community members, it meant that the teachers would have to repeat the lesson using English in order to fully prepare the learners for the examinations. According to ADEA (2005) the community members have been reduced by the language of education to onlookers. This situation has denied the pupils the opportunity of experiencing a sense of community in the classroom by the teachers and the community members exchanging and sharing experiences. It appears the language of instruction has not motivated and promoted the teachers to involve the community members in curriculum implementation matters. The teachers’ hands appeared tied as grade seven external examinations take into account all the primary school work. Generally, teachers were worried about the examinations which, in Zimbabwe, presently have a very high premium. This is in line with research findings by Mufanechiya and Mufanechiya (2011b) that the selection of English language as the medium of instruction has side-lined the majority of the people to take part in educational issues.
What this means is that government intervention is needed to look at the language of instruction – examination dichotomy and establish some congruency between the two as a key driver to community participation in curriculum implementation. For the teachers, involving the community members who use the mother tongue in the classroom becomes time wasted rather
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than knowledge gained. Therefore, it means that examinations and the language of instruction have conspired to exclude the community members’ active participation in curriculum implementation. What should happen is that the agenda and the policies of the government regarding curriculum access should be enforced and user-friendly.
The results from this study also indicated that apart from the language of instruction and examinations, the school heads and the teachers are also the other stumbling blocks to community participation in curriculum implementation. The professional teacher-rural peasant divide was pronounced as the teachers looked down upon the community members in terms of their meaningful contribution to the process of curriculum implementation. It appeared that the school heads and the teachers saw the community members as unprofessional and ignorant. Their contribution was mostly relevant and restricted to anything outside the classroom. Hargreaves (1996) and Barnhardt (2006) attest to this attitude where they say that for the teachers to engage the communities in productive educational experience and interaction, they (teachers) believe, would be selling their profession to non-believers. They would rather survive alone in the classroom wilderness. It is because of this attitude that the teachers remained sceptical and reluctant to engage the community members into their plan of teaching. It appeared that the teachers feared that including the community members in curriculum implementation would dilute their professional power and control over the process of curriculum implementation.
The findings also indicated that the primary school teachers jealously guarded their classrooms (the closed-door policy). This was premised on the fear that their pupils would be ‘poisoned’and correcting the damage might not be easy. For the teachers, the safe position was to shut their classroom doors to the community members. If the teachers required any information from the community members, it was better they got it themselves (i.e. as teachers). They knew how to present it to the pupils. Studies by Zimmerman (2006) and by Gorinski and Fraser (2006) confirm that the teachers have closed their classrooms and have declared teacher autonomy to protect themselves from those who may want to threaten their power. Another explanation why teachers have closed their classroom doors, would be that the teachers felt their inadequacies could be exposed by the community members. They erected an interference wall by regarding community participation in curriculum implementation as counterproductive to children’s learning. In this vein, Humphreys (1993) and Hargreaves (1996) found out that many teachers felt threatened by the involvement of the communities in educational matters. They feared that by engaging the community members in curriculum
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implementation, the teachers may experience a loss of boundaries of self and influence with little distinction between themselves and the community members.
The contradiction, however, is that the teachers often gave the pupils homework so that they may be assisted at home. The teachers marked the work, pointing to the capabilities of the community members to contribute to curriculum implementation. Without the belief that the community members know about certain academic issues, the teachers would not have given the pupils homework. The teachers should, therefore, not underestimate the enormous amount of learning children may receive from the community members, both formally and informally. While the school curriculum is much more expanded, ironically, it includes so many things that the children learn at home. Barnhardt (2006) shares the same sentiments, namely that engaging the communities would enable the teachers to expand the locus of knowledge and to use an eclectic approach with educational experiences not remaining within the narrow confines of the classroom.
The other important finding from the study was that the teachers understood that the learners fail to see the value of knowledge coming from other sources than their teachers. One possible explanation was that the teachers and the learners looked at the person’s status in society and the historical background in order to take their information seriously. Another explanation was that the practice of engaging members of the communities in curriculum implementation was not common. There was very little belief that community members could capture well the complexity of classroom processes. Furthermore, the teachers felt that the learners may fail to separate community members’ newly found role and their role in the community. What was unclear however, was the teachers and learners’ mental preparedness to accept the community members as genuine and critical partners in curriculum implementation. On the other hand, in support of the theory that guided this study, Putnam (2000) acknowledges that social capital can be measured by the amount of trust and reciprocity between individuals.
The study also ascertained that the community members have not helped matters either. Most of them felt they did not have the expertise to contribute to curriculum implementation. It was this feeling that drove these community members away from the classrooms, thus making the classrooms the exclusive domain of the teachers. Swift-Morgan (2006) concurs with the finding when he propounds that usually the community members doubt their own expertise, competence and literacy. As such regarded the work in the classroom as the preserve of those who were trained to do so.
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The study also indicated that the primary school teachers did not have time to plan and prepare for the issue of community participation given their heavy teaching loads. Preedy (1993) attested to this observation when he says that with this pressure for time in a content-heavy curriculum, community engagement receives a low priority. The engagement process, it appeared, required concrete practical steps by the teachers to make inroads and contacts with community members, thus creating the much needed dialogical space between teachers and community members. From the study, I realised that all this did not happen. The absence of a dialogical space was a recipe for failure and ineffective participation practices by the community members in curriculum implementation. The communication between the community members and the school community, which was supposed to influence the nature and quality of the engagement, was not exploited to full effect. It appeared that because of limited time on the teachers’ side, what had not happened was the process of getting to know each other. The need to come to some agreement of how the teachers and the community members could work together was important.
This finding is in agreement with research findings by Burgess et al. (2010) who asserted that time was an issue for the teachers in the classroom, and will remain a consistent concern across all educational settings. In the same vein, Zimmerman (2006) observed that attempting to find time to slot in community members and disrupting the teachers’ well-established routine has never been easy. Lambert (2008) concluded that the knowledge and meaningful value-addition by the community members to the development of the whole child, lost given time constraints, remain a stone that we often leave unturned.
The relationship between the community members, the school heads and the teachers had not evolved and developed to a trusting level, especially with regards to community participation in curriculum implementation. It appeared that all the parties thought the engagement process would grow automatically without any of them taking the first step. The situation left the community members disappointed in respect of the lack of opportunities to participate in curriculum implementation. Adams (2012) and Zimmerman (2006) conclude that the schools should have time to build relationships with the communities. Eventually this would also bring about community participation in curriculum implementation. The above views go along with the recommendations forwarded by the community members during the interviews where they suggested that the schools and the communities should plan and work together for the benefit of the child. But the community members insisted that the teachers and the school heads should
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find the time to educate community members on what they should do to assist the teachers in the classroom.
The communication between schools and communities, the study revealed, was one-sided. The teachers indirectly approached community members through children’s homework, and to contribute on those aspects where they felt they needed help. On the other hand, the community members would not approach the school with the knowledge and skills they could offer. The school heads and the teachers were seen to be in powerful professional positions with a superiority tag. They were viewed as authority figures by the community members, resulting in a skewed communication relationship. The skewness did not augur well for effective and productive community participation in curriculum implementation. This is contrary to the theory which guided this study, the Social Capital Theory which discourages individualism and places its emphasis and encouragement on social networks, community connections, civic engagement, social virtue and social interactions (Smith 2000-2009, Putnam 2000, Arefi 2003, Papa et al. 2006, Claridge 2004a). These phrases are closely interwoven to explain social capital as a concept rooted in community life. Therefore, for community participation in curriculum implementation to come to fruition, the mechanisms have to be put in place to create the space for communication and discussion, in order that the school heads, the teachers and the community members may read from the same page. This could be aided by embracing Preedy’s (1993) idea that the teachers’ hours of work should include educational partnerships with communities. The study found that in the absence of this space and communication, the ‘us-them’ scenario would prevail, making it difficult for the parties to meaningfully integrate their ideas for an enhanced curriculum implementation practice.
The results indicated that the political environment in the rural areas was heavily pregnant with partisan party politics maintaining boundaries between and among community members. The ruling party-opposition divide is very pronounced, as the school heads and the teachers are wary of whom to invite to general school activities, let alone curriculum implementation. This was confirmed in discussions with the teachers and the community members. From the school heads’ reports, the schools were not at liberty to engage anybody in the community. In order for the schools to engage any member of the community, they have to do so in close consultation with the local political leadership so that vetting could be done. What this means is that engaging community members known to belong to the opposition would place the whole school and its leaders at risk. In Zimbabwe, the civil service should be a-political, and for any institution to show some opposition political inclination, one would pay a heavy price.
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Therefore, any member of the community from the opposition parties with the skills and knowledge in certain areas that could profit curriculum implementation was unlikely to be invited. Thus, the school heads and the teachers had to make use of their own knowledge and skills, rather than engaging community members who were likely to put their schools at risk. However, the Social CapitalTtheory criticises all these political divisions and a polarised school environment. According to Putnam (2000), Narayan and Cassidy (2001) and Papa et al. (2006) social capital succeeds on the basis of goodwill, joint relationships and coordinated effort among the mixed groups of people. Furthermore, the same literature indicates that civic engagement, an aspect of social capital, is borrowed from the politics of democracy. There is a need for wide external consultation by involving different people, despite their different backgrounds.
Therefore, the need to separate education from party politics cannot be overemphasised. The school heads and the teachers should consult whoever they would like to in the community, regardless of their political affiliation. The government, through the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, has a mandate to depoliticise all educational institutions, allowing a free environment in which everyone with educational ideas can freely contribute to curriculum implementation. Furthermore, the traditional leaders who are supposed to be apolitical, should lead the way by bringing their subjectstogether and creating a family situation for the good of education. Solving the political dilemma would give room for all the members of the community to willingly make a contribution to curriculum implementation when called upon by primary school heads and teachers, a situation not happening at the moment. What was revealed by the study was that correcting this problem might not be soon given the high political temperature currently prevailing in Zimbabwe. The various stakeholders in the study recommended that educational issues should be depoliticised and all political constraints eliminated in order to pave way for free and effective community participation in curriculum implementation.
From the study it also emerged that the community members expected to be remunerated for their services when called to participate in curriculum implementation. The possible explanation was that the Chivi district is drought-prone and many NGOs operate in the area and always engage the community members in activities that directly benefited them, either in cash or kind. The mentality inculcated in the community members was that they had to be paid for any service rendered. The other reason why community members expected to be remunerated could be that the rural communities generally were finding it hard to survive under
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the dollarized Zimbabwean economy where it was difficult to raise the United States dollar to sustain the family. Any invitation would, therefore, be received with the hope and expectation to get something to fend for the family. On the other hand, it is difficult for the school heads to dispense money on activities that were not provided for in any of the policy documents. For accountability purposes, the school heads cannot authorise the payment of community members who participated in curriculum implementation, or even offer a token of appreciation. The only appreciation would be a verbal ‘thank you’. It appeared that most of the community members, thus, found it very difficult to leave any of their activities at home that generated income, to come to school to offer a free service. The school heads, teachers, traditional and church leaders, parents and business people should be educated on the complementary role they should play in curriculum implementation as a service to the pupils and their community. The issue of remuneration should be openly discussed so that the community members may appreciate the primary schools’ concerns and constraints. Every community member should be