Rote learning not effective for pupils – Don

If you are to compare the standard of education in the past and what is obtainable today, what can you say are some of the major disparities? You cannot even compare them because there are many disparities. The truth is that if you are in the teaching profession because you want to make money then […]

If you are to compare the standard of education in the past and what is obtainable today, what can you say are some of the major disparities?
You cannot even compare them because there are many disparities. The truth is that if you are in the teaching profession because you want to make money then you have completely missed it. That is where the problem starts; some of the teachers these days have no interest in the job; they just want to make money either because they don’t know why they are in the profession or because there is no alternative. When we joined the teaching profession as Grade II teachers, we came in fully prepared and we wanted to do the job. So, I tell teachers now that if you are a teacher and your aim is to help build and develop human beings then you will be happy because you will find satisfaction. But these days most teachers, especially those in the villages, will take their pupils to the farm to help them break melon and do other things depending on the environment, and children being who they are cannot ask you why you are wasting their time and cheating them. Instead, they are happy to help their teachers. There are also instances you find teachers sitting idle under the tree and when you ask them why they are not in the class room, they will tell you they have not been paid. Another thing is that the teachers lack the necessary training and I think the mistake we made in this country was phasing out Teacher Grade II Certificate because you find out that even those who obtained NCE or university degrees are not well groomed for teaching and this is because some of the prerequisites for teaching in the primary schools are not in the NCE or university curriculum.
 
The education sector in another area said to be enmeshed in corruption, what are some of the causes and impact of these corrupt tendencies in the system?
There is no doubt about it. There is a saying that the reward of teachers is in heaven but unfortunately, some of us may not get to heaven because we are carried away by materialism. Corruption is not only at the higher level, you find that some teachers go as far as changing marks and this is highly unfortunate. When I speak to teachers at workshops, I tell them that these children will stand at the gate of heaven and give account on you. When you look at the affective behaviour of the child, where the teacher assesses the child’s behavior in terms of honesty, cleanliness etc, you will notice that some teachers award good grades to children of the elite. And when it comes to the children from poor homes, the teacher begins to contemplate whether to give a C or D. What basis are you using to classify them? For some, it is just based on their parent’s economic status. This is also happening at the university level, and I advise that no matter how busy a lecturer is, he/she should mark exam scripts fairly, because you don’t joke with exam results. We have cases of missing results or changed results. People are human beings; those you give to mark can collect money to change the result. It is not only politicians and public servants that are corrupt, even the primary and secondary school teachers as well as parents too are corrupt. Parents buy exam results for their kids.

 How do you think the issue of poor teacher training can be tackled?
It is one thing to have the knowledge and another thing to be able to impact it. Some of our teachers don’t have the necessary training because the curriculum was changed. Looking at the basic schools for instance, subject areas like the infant methods were in the Grade II curriculum to help the teacher in handling the child and then there were subjects relating to the development stages of the child so that at every stage, the teacher knows how to handle the child. But these days you find nursery schools teaching children how to sing the states and capital and the parents are so excited to listen to their children sing the entire 36 states and their capitals, but stop the child and ask him or her without singing it and the child may not know because it is rote learning. It is like singing the times table, 2X1= 2 to the end, but if you were to stop the child and ask what is 2 x 8 he may not know because the concept is not built in the child, what the child is singing is abstract to him, it is just cramming. So the bases of meaningful learning are no longer there, the teachers are not doing that because most of those courses that were taught in Grade II are not in the NCE and degree programmes and it is something that needs to be looked into or they will have to redesign the curriculum to cover those aspects.