An assessment of the effectiveness of the orientation training of teachers for the implementation of the revised secondary school curriculumin Malawi: A case study of four secondary schools in northern education division

Abstract

As a way of trying to improve the quality of Education in Malawi, the Malawi Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) embarked on secondary school curriculum and assessment review in 2012. Implementation of the new curriculum was done in 2015 in junior classes followed by senior classes in 2017. So far much of the research focused on school-based factors that negatively affect the implementation of the new curriculum, for example, Sabola et al., (2017) and Banda (2020). Research on the assessment of the effectiveness of the orientation training of teachers for the implementation of the Secondary School Curriculum is scanty. This study was therefore conceived to fill this gap by focusing on the following three objectives: to determine the quality of the orientation training of teachers for the implementation of the new curriculum; to analyze the challenges associated with orientation training of teachers for the implementation of the new curriculum; to examine ways of improving orientation training programs for implementing new curriculum. As a qualitative study, data was collected using face to face interviews, and lesson observations, and was analysed thematically.There were 26 purposefully sampled participants – trainers, head teachers, heads of departments and teachers. Stenhouse’s curriculum policy change theory was adopted as an interpretive framework. The findings of the study have shown that the orientation training was poorly conducted, characterized by content overload, lack of psychological preparation of teachers, inadequate resources, shortage of time, information distortion through the Cascade Model. This led to ineffective teaching performance. It is therefore concluded that the orientation training for teachers was ineffective. Based on the findings, prioritizing provision of adequate resources for training programs, implementing evaluation mechanism, increasing the number of trainers and flattening the Cascade Model are some of the ways that would help to improve the efficiency of the trainings. The study, therefore, recommends that the Ministry of Education should consider reviewing its new curriculum orientation strategy by among other things, changing the model of training by adopting the flattened Cascade Model. This is in addition to ensuring adequate funds.