Engaging teachers in professional development exposes them to new ways of doing things. In this section, the challenges of professional support for teachers in and outside the school are discussed. Professional support in this vein includes training and supervisory support from head teachers and professional development. Despite the significance of professional development when it comes to supporting teachers in implementing assessment reforms, it was disclosed during interviews that all the four teachers had acquired no training in assessment. Awo remarks as follows:
“Assessment was not part of my initial training”
Similar expressions were made by the other three teachers. Given the new assessment policies training in assessment would seem to be essential for teachers and in this case in the mathematics classroom. The case studies revealed that the primary teachers (Ebow and Awo) neither possessed a strong content knowledge in mathematics nor could they provide alternative assessment for their pupils. It is therefore not surprising that they had difficulty setting their own examination and class questions as Ebow disclosed:
“One of the major challenges I face is trying to set appropriate questions for children to understand and answer. The difficulty lies with how to frame the question appropriately in order to get the desired answer from the pupils. Sometimes, they know the answers to the question, but get it wrong because of the wrong frame of questions. This is a major challenge for me so I resort to textbooks for my examination questions.” [Ebow]
The difficulty in posing problems and varying assessments in the mathematics class was also observed in John as well as Sam’s classrooms. Teachers’ difficulty in getting children to understand concepts is rooted in their own struggles in teaching for understanding (Akyeampong et al, 2001). In this study, I found that the use of prescriptive textbook examples with routine problems was common. The implication is that non-routine problems which are not anchored in textbooks may not form part of assessment material used by these teachers who concentrate only on textbook exercises. This is in line with Senk et al’s (1997) study where teachers relied on text books and did not make any changes to questions, in the bid to vary them. To add to this, research in African classrooms identifies prescriptive instructional behaviour, which has become so deeply entrenched in the professional culture such that, progressive teaching methods, such as ‘child- centered’ reflective practice approaches stand little chance of gaining ground in classroom practice (O’Sullivan, 2001).
Many of the school textbooks and curriculum documents in Ghanaian classrooms are written mostly in deterministic style that correspond with and validate the prescriptive and authoritarian structure of teaching and learning. Many teachers do not have access to other reference materials apart from government prescribed textbooks (NESAR, 2013) which then become the only definitive teaching and learning material for the content and process of teaching. Indeed textbook availability and supply has come to occupy such a vital part of improving basic education in developing countries (Lockheed and Verspoor, 1991) but still textbooks to pupil ratios can be as low as one is to eight (see Fobih et al., 1999; NEIDA 1992).
For professional development, the Assessment Unit (ASU) is mandated by policy to educate teachers on any changes in assessment procedures. However, it was evident from the teacher interviews that there was a lack of communication between the Assessment Services Unit (ASU) of the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the schools. Whilst the ASU had introduced school-based assessment (SBA)13, as a modified form of assessment, the case study teachers were still using the old continuous assessment format. During interviews, all four teachers portrayed a lack of awareness of the new changes and still practiced the old system of continuous assessment (CA) as Awo recounts:
“We went for a workshop on the school-based assessment, but up till now, we have not heard anything from them; so we are still using the continuous assessment format” [Awo].
Further investigations I conducted revealed that none of the teachers within the study had been trained for the implementation of SBA. Sam also said “I have heard about it but I am not practicing it now”. Similar expressions were made by John and Ebow which indicates that they knew little about the SBA. Teachers’ lack of engagement in new assessment practices and the lack of training could be linked to the disconnection between them and the ASU. Such a situation has implications for decision makers such as the ASU and teachers who are tasked to conduct assessment using the SBA.
The primary school teachers who needed help with their teaching received assistance from their colleagues in the JHS. In interviews, Awo and Ebow confirmed that they
13 School –Based Assessment is a modified Continuous Assessment with the inclusion of observations and projects in
addition to the normal class exercises, quizzes and home work but with a reduced number of tasks. Teachers are required to record 12 tasks as SBA marks instead of the previous 33 tasks per week as output of work.
frequently received support from Sam and John. Supporting peers has been stressed by Cohen and Ball (1990), Carpenter and Fennema (1992),) and Richardson (1999).
Supervision of assessment was limited to the quantity of output of work produced by these teachers as indicated by Tony:
“I sometimes collect the homework to check how many times homework has been given”.
This notion, confirmed what Black and Wiliam (1998) referred to as the ‘black box’ model of assessment. It was observed that school administrators were normally blinded by setbacks to the efficient operation of their schools in such areas as shortages of furniture, books and funds among others, and were therefore less concerned about how such issues impacted teaching and assessment in the classroom. The two head teachers in this study admitted that they attended numerous meetings, responded to letters, received visitors, and dealt with complaints from pupils and parents and these were their major routine activities. Although I cannot recount recording lesson observation as one of their duties during my study, they tended to monitor work output by the grade levels. How such marks were actually awarded remained unknown to the head teachers, as represented by the black box in Figure 6.1.
Figure 7.1: The Black Box of Assessment
Classroom Assessment
Source: author
Figure 7.1 shows how head teachers can be oblivious of assessment practices in the classroom, being more concerned about the measurable output of teachers. The pressure on schools for pupils to pass examinations may account for head teachers’ interest in output of work. Despite the need for output of work and the strong influence of examinations, head teachers nevertheless sometimes support their teachers in diverse ways to make the practice more rewarding. Mansah explained how she supported her teachers:
“At times, I visit the examination class to give them support. I normally do this when I notice some challenges with [for] the teacher in the class during lesson delivery. Sometimes, I walk in to give the teacher some hints or invite him to my office for discussions [Mansah].
Although Mansah did visit her teachers’ classrooms, the emphasis was on examination classes. This clearly exemplifies the high premium that schools place on external assessment as discussed in section 7.2. Echoing findings from elsewhere this study suggests the urgent need to strengthen head teachers’ comprehensive supervision of their staff (Mpeirwe, 2007).