Faktorer for å forbedre læring

There have been several debates on how to improve the quality of education in Namibia, for quite a while now, and the education Minister Dr Abraham Iyambo and his Deputy Dr David Namwandi have been quite vocal about it. 

This debate is not new and some work was done in the past to look into this important issue. In 2001, we completed a research studies that were published in 2002 under the theme “key factors improving educational quality”.

My other two colleaques Charles Matapi Kabajani and Boniface Ned Sibeya investigated the role of the Inspector of Education and Effective Leadership and Management respectively. My own under the same theme was titled “Analysis of the relationship between teacher characteristics and learner performance in Grade 6 English Reading in Namibia”

Although this analysis was focusing generally on the grade 6 English reading, the remedy is likely to be the same as with other grades and subjects. This could therefore be relevant and helpful today as we are battling with the question of improving the quality of education in our country.

The above mentioned study applied descriptive, correlation and then multivariate regression analysis which combined the following aspects to determine their impacts on the learner performance, they are teacher academic education, teacher age, teacher training , speaking English, learner age, parent education, homework, repetition and absenteeism. Some of these variables were used as control variables.

Much of the evidence from literature indicates that the teacher remains an important and indispensable resource in the provision of education. The quality of interaction between teachers and learners directly relates to the performance of learners. 

When teacher and learner characteristics were considered separately from other factors in the multivariate regression, the variables showed both positive and negative relationships with learner performance. Teacher training and teacher academic education were the two teacher factors with significant positive relationships to learner performance. This would suggest that if you have teachers who are trained, you are very likely to have better learner performance then when your teachers are not trained at all. The performance can become even better when the teacher who is trained has higher academic qualifications. 

Teacher training remains the strongest teacher variable influencing learner performance in English reading in Namibia. Considering all things being equal, meaning if all the influencing factors are eliminated, absenteeism and repetition were the two learner factors with a significant, but negative relationship to performance in reading. 

A learner who is absent frequently from class will miss lessons and will obviously perform poorly. Equally, the results show that a learner who has repeated a grade once is likely to do so again during his/her school career and hence poor performance. Caution should be exercised here because there are evidences of learners who repeated and did well afterwards. 

The research findings have raised some important policy and practice implications that the nation and the ministry of education can consider. What we need to bear in mind though is that there are many factors that influence learner performance. Ideally it is good to look at all the factors simultaneously but in education it is a big challenge that is difficult if not impossible to achieve simple because of the long term nature of improving education. 

The learners that one start with for example when reforming will have finished by the time the results are known. Some teachers may also be affected let alone the management and political heads.

The descriptive results have shown some inequity in the way trained teachers are distributed across regions. There is a strongly positive correlation between teacher training and learner performance in English reading. This is stronger than any other variable in the model. 

It is also correlated positively with other variables. This analysis therefore suggests that trained teachers contribute to better learner performance. There is thus a need to deploy more trained teachers to the regions with a lack of trained teachers. If the situation is still the same as the time of the study it is time that we carefully study how teachers are now distributed across regions and also compare the performance in those regions and schools as we are looking for answer to the question of quality education.

The results of the study show a positive correlation between teachers’ academic education and learner performance. 

There is also a positive correlation between teacher training and teacher gender that is the majority of Grade 6 learners with high a number years of academic education were female. Is the situation still the same Doctors Iyambo and Namwandi? Those learners who were taught by teachers with higher levels of academic education performed better than those who were taught by teachers with a fewer years of academic. 

The ministry should look into the possibility of providing further academic training to teachers with lower academic qualifications, as this may contribute to improved learner performance. 

Now that we have our teacher education under the University of Namibia it is high time that we recruit prospective student teachers from those who have completed a degree and have a year of teacher training. Alternatively teacher training should include teaching of subject content rather than teaching method only. The latter will result in a teacher knows well how to teach but hardly know what he/she teaches. Let the debate continue.  

Lenke til artikkelen på New Era.

The Namibian har fere artikler om samme tema.