Learning is a process

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday August 29, 2022 06:00

There is need for all responsible for the school systems beginning with the central ministry to the classroom practitioner to accept the stark reality, without any sense of embarrassment, that the system is failing students.

The system should boldly accept that efforts made have hitherto succeeded in tinkering at the edges and not addressing adequately real issues inhibiting provision of quality education. There is therefore a compelling need to chart a new course and usher the system into some un-chartered territory.

Where do we begin and where do we go from here? The first building block towards a new dispensation should be laid by the central office. The central office should understand that school systems thrive in an atmosphere of empowerment. There is need to pursue a policy based on freedom, autonomy and accountability. Instead of being expected to comply with a prescription list from the central office, schools should have the leeway to innovate and learn from experience. The central office should be prepared to let certain things go.

Change can begin in earnest when the central office begins to scale down its involvement in the day to day running of schools. In spite of the commitment made a decade ago to the policy of decentralisation and devolution of some responsibilities and functions to regional structures, the situation on the ground suggests that the central office still wields enormous power over what is going on in the schools not only at policy but also at operational levels. For example, the central ministry continues to exercise tight control over appointment and deployment of senior school administrators and determines financial allocations to schools. The central office’s control over human resource matters is impacting on timely and appropriate deployment of staff. On the finance front, the Professor Jaap Kuiper study on low achievement levels in schools observed that “school managers clearly have very little say over the finances they require to generate a high-quality and rich Learning Environment. The finance procedures are tightly held, and finances come and go in almost a magical and often unpredictable manner.’’

Of course perfecting the policy environment cannot on its own deliver desired learning outcomes. A positive policy environment should be accompanied by an effective instructional delivery system. Therefore it would be remiss of this piece to avoid highlighting the importance of fine tuning pedagogical skills. Getting the basics right in the classroom guarantees improved learning outcomes. On the status of pedagogy in the schools, Kuiper noted “that schools focus only on ‘teaching’, not on ‘learning’. The syllabus is covered, in a formal sense, but it is not reflected in students having developed a rich understanding of the different subjects.’’ It is against this background that school leadership should frequently visit classrooms to support teaching and learning. As Rachel Curtis and Elizabeth City put it, leaders must visit classrooms “looking for particular characteristics of effective instruction: expectations, rigour, student engagement, quality of teacher questioning and so on.’’ Every day presents an opportunity for teachers to improve their offering. A school system is a learning environment not only for students but teachers as well. Teachers should allow experience dictate their instructional practices. But all times should be guided by a desire to reach all children and every child. The best approach is to game the game simple. Notes designed specifically for struggling students should be short, concise and straight to the point. During my teaching experience I learnt the hard way that over elaboration and over use of colourful language in the classroom instruction more often confuses a good number of under achieving students.

It should be noted that change can be a very painful and unsettling experience. It can entail giving up something very dear. It may not be easy for the central office to let go because power is so sweet. It may not be easy for the principal to stop lecturing to teachers at every opportunity. But power cannot be kept and pursued to the detriment of teaching and learning. Curtis and City observed that, “In systems where people are identified by the position they hold and authority that they wield, asking them to work collaboratively implies loss of identity. They may have to give up making the final decision.’’ Everyone involved in the education system should be ready to sacrifice something to advance the cause of good learning. This might necessarily mean loss of power.