Basic Education Support for Poverty Reduction
CNTR 03 5332
Institutional Assessment of Gambia College
[Planning, Management and Delivery of Teacher Training Courses]
Marion Young
October 2005
Institutional Assessment Report – Gambia College
Executive Summary
The consultant was contracted from Cambridge Education to undertake a 10-day mission to the Gambia over the period 4th to 14th October 2005. The consultant contributed to an Institutional Assessment of Gambia College for the BESPOR Project, focussing specifically on planning, management and delivery of teacher training courses. The Terms of Reference are given in Appendix 3.1.
The following issues were raised by staff at Gambia College School of Education during the institutional assessment of teacher training courses:
(i) Curriculum review has recently been undertaken, aligned with school curricula.
(ii) Curriculum resource materials are limited and budgets are controlled centrally. Some low cost student/lecturer reference manuals could be developed immediately.
(iii) College entry procedures are in the process of being tightened but issues of balancing quality with meeting teacher shortages remains a challenge. There has been some delay to the start of the academic year and there remains a shortage of new intake with a very low proportion of female trainees.
(iv) Underperformance of female trainees is a cause for concern, linked to low school achievement by girls.
(v) Research capacity of the college could be developed.
(vi) Consistency in enforcement of student codes of conduct is a concern.
(vii) Codes of conduct for staff are functional and new appraisal initiatives are being piloted.
(viii) Monitoring of departmental performance could be improved by conducting a review of achievements at the end of each term against work plan. More authority should be extended to HoD’s.
(ix) Networking of computers within the college will streamline communication and information management.
(x) Monitoring of student performance uses various modalities.
(xi) Students and lecturers require training in test question design as a basic skill.
(xii) FTI catalytic funding has supported Distance Education and teaching practice observation. Strategies for sustaining this funding are needed.
(xiii) Teaching practice supervision has recently been reviewed and proposals are included in a report to be published shortly by Gambia College.
(xiv) The system of mentor support is problematic and requires some strengthening.
(xv) Distance Education is a good solution to teacher training and teacher supply problems in principal but in practice there are problems to be addressed and overcome if trainee teachers are to really benefit and complete their full three year learning cycle successfully.
(xvi) Administration processing of examination results is causing delay to the start of the new academic year for all year groups including completers.
(xvii) Students need regular feedback on their performance and areas in which they have to improve.
Introduction
The aim of this consultancy is to contribute to an assessment of the institutional capacity of Gambia College, specifically to assess the planning, management and delivery of Teacher Training courses. Other consultants have been assigned the tasks of assessing the organisational management systems, financial management systems and a staff audit.
Four areas of focus have been identified for this component:
· Assessment of course planning and development in the School of Education
· Assessment of effectiveness of course management systems and procedures
· Assessment of course monitoring and evaluation procedures
· Assessment of the effectiveness of the field training, coaching and mentoring of PTC and HTC students
It is acknowledged in the Gambia College documentation of the internal consultative and review meeting (December 2005) that there is a prioritised need to reorganise and renew the administrative and organisational structures of the Gambia College, School of Education. This Institutional Assessment contributes to the academic review process. The feedback from various stakeholder perspectives pick up and elaborate on some of the key issues raised in the internal review: staff and student motivation and retention, student entry procedures, time management, student and lecturer codes of conduct, processes of curriculum design and review, consistency between college and school curricula, teaching practice support mechanisms and professional development for college staff including development of academic research profiles.
Methodology
Interviews were conducted with staff and students at the Gambia College from 6th-13th October 2005. The purpose of the interviews was explained, the interviewees were assured that any information provided would be treated confidentially and they were invited to describe their current situation in Gambia College as well as any suggestions they may have for improvements to the planning, management and delivery of teacher training courses. The schedule, including the name and designation of each person interviewed, is included in Appendix 3.2.
The findings and recommendations are a summary of the information provided in the interviews and are entirely the views of the staff of The Gambia College School of Education, collated under the four areas of focus for this institutional assessment.
Findings
3.1.3 Assessment of Planning, Management and Delivery of Teacher Training Courses
3.1.3.1 Course Planning and Development in the School of Education
· CURRICULUM REVIEW AND REVISION
A review of courses has been undertaken this summer, prior to the start of the new academic year 2005-06, for the first time in several years. Relevance of course structure and content has been considered. In some cases components have been merged and in other cases new content has been added or existing content removed where there is duplication or overlap with another subject.
The college subject departments have worked with the DoSE curriculum division in the process of curriculum revision. The curriculum review workshop made available to the lecturers all current school curriculum documents in order to ensure that there is no discrepancy between the college curriculum and the school curriculum. The curriculum review undertaken this year is a preliminary re-structuring exercise which will be repeated in future years involving more stakeholders.
Alongside curriculum review several staff commented on the need to train teachers and trainees in appropriate methodology for delivery of the curriculum. Teaching methodology is integrated into the first year college based PTC course but with limited practical observation or application.
The PTC first year course is mainly focused on subject content with 4 weeks in the summer school focused on teaching methodology. This is considered to be inadequate to prepare trainees for the classroom. One solution would be to incorporate pedagogy more directly into the subject teaching, linking theory and subject content with practical sessions on how to teach young children.
Recommendations:
o Regular review of the Gambia College curriculum
o Curriculum Officers and Gambia College lecturers work together on periodic school and college curriculum revisions
o Alignment between school curriculum and Gambia College curriculum
o Theory and practical application must be integrated during the first year PTC.
· CURRICULUM RESOURCES
Lecturers source their own textbooks for course materials, with exception of Population Studies where textbook development was sponsored by UNFPA. UNICEF will fund development of a training manual for teaching Child Rights. It is more difficult to find donor funding for development of resource materials for some subject areas, in particular for the core subjects. In some subject areas, particularly in mathematics at LB level, locally available low-cost or no-cost materials are used to improvise teaching resources. In some subjects the curriculum demands the use of modern methods and tools, for example HTC arts and crafts and agricultural science.
Lecturers could combine their notes and reference materials within each department to develop a subject manual which would be low cost and easy to compile and reproduce, requiring no additional funding. This would ensure some consistency and sharing of ideas within departments and would provide a resource which students could purchase, access on the computer or borrow from the library.
Poverty is a major problem. Most students come from very poor families and any additional costs for materials and resources is problematic for them.
Within The Gambia there are publishing houses but no editing facility for local textbook production.
Donor and government funding is channelled centrally to The Gambia College. The budget is allocated through a process where each HOD submits requisition application for every item via the Head of School to the Principal for approval. It is proposed by staff within The Gambia College School of Education that by linking the budget allocation to programme objectives through an annual planning process, teacher training activities can be better planned and prioritised and funding can be better utilised through shared and delegated responsibilities.
LIBRARY PROCURMENT SYSTEM - Heads of Departments are asked by the librarian to list the books they would like added to the library stock. Within the budget the orders are shared equally between departments. The library is well used by students. MDI and VSO have computerised library systems.
Recommendations:
o Prescribe core course textbooks or low cost development of student / lecturer course notes to ensure consistency in content quality and relevance.
o Decentralised funding and budget allocation would enable greater autonomy for the School of Education
o Decentralisation of budget allocation to Departmental level would enable Heads of Departments to take on management responsibility and delegated accountability.
o Complete sets of current student work books and teacher manuals used in schools should be available in the library for reference.
· ENTRY PROCEDURES – GAMBIA COLLEGE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
There exists a shortage of teachers in schools and a shortage of applicants who fulfil the entry criteria for admission to PTC and HTC teacher training courses. The entry selection procedures have been modified for the new intake of trainees in 2005. In addition to the credit passes and WAEC entrance examination pass required in previous years this year the Gambia College has introduced an interview to check the authenticity of each application. The interview has been very successful in filtering out and deselecting those who used a proxy in the examination process.
Entry requirements 2005:
PTC 3 credits + WAEC Exam pass + authentication interview
HTC (in-service) 3 credits + authentication interview
HTC (pre-service) 4 credits + authentication interview
At the start of the new academic year there was some disruption to the timely start-up of courses, teaching practice placements and final placement of newly qualified teachers due to late examination results, re-sits, new selection procedures including interviews for trainee teachers and adjustments to school placements. HTC 1 classes will start two weeks late due to delays in selection processes.
A weakness with the entry qualifications is that they are based on an overall average pass mark which may disguise a low mark in one subject, for example a trainee with poor performance in mathematics can still fulfil the entry requirements. A minimum level of competency in basic language and basic mathematics is suggested.
Given the urgent need to recruit and train sufficient teachers of good quality to meet the shortfall in The Gambia, there are several anomalies in the recruitment process which lower efficiency and quality in the system, highlighted by staff in the interviews:
- PTC students require a 90% pass mark in the WAEC examination – this pass mark could be lowered by 5-10% to admit additional numbers of trainees.
- HTC students who do not have the correct combination of subject credits are being considered for PTC but as this is below their expectation there is an issue of motivation and negative attitude in trainees being transferred into PTC.
- Untrained teachers currently in the system show commitment to teaching and often struggle to reach the examination pass mark as they left school some years ago (some applicants revealed in the interviews that the had sat the examination many times to try to gain entry into the system). Basic induction training for untrained teachers and examination preparation courses will contribute to system efficiency and will improve teaching quality and commitment. Alternatively, a fast-track entry training for those with teaching experience and a minimum level of competency conducted at regional level would provide an interim solution.
- Attrition rates are estimated to be high[1] and efficiency of the teacher training system is therefore not efficient - teacher training is often the last choice in further education, newly qualified teachers leave teaching for more lucrative employment, and delays in first salary payment leaves newly qualified teachers with no income for 4-5 months at a time when they may incur expenses in moving to take up their new appointment.
- HTC students may only teach for two years on completion of teacher training before enrolling to study a university degree.
The shortage of teachers is more acute in Regions 5 and 6. It is more costly for untrained teachers and aspiring teachers from these regions to apply for entrance to Gambia College, including access to pre-admission coaching, sitting the examination and attendance at the selection interview.
Recommendations:
o Take into account teaching experience of unqualified teachers applying to Gambia College PTC including Head Teacher or RED performance assessment report, and balance this against lower pass mark in the entrance examination
o Review recruitment strategies to improve system efficiency, to maintain or improve quality of the teaching force and to ensure that untrained teachers who show commitment and skills in teaching are not excluded from the system.
o Consider the feasibility of regional level recruitment for teacher training applicants in Regions 5 and 6.
o Set a realistic basic minimum level of competency for all trainee teachers in language and mathematics.
· RESEARCH CAPACITY BUILDING IN THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
GTTI previously contracted consultants from Gambia College to undertake research assignments. This no longer happens but it is generally felt among the staff that Gambia College should have the capacity and should develop a long term plan to build capacity in research skills. The college would need to identify sources of funding possibly through sponsorship and develop skills in preparation of research proposals. Key research staff would need to acquire updated exposure to research methodologies and would need to be professionally motivated to undertake research assignments. A minimal level of research funding can be utilised to start the process on a low cost basis. First the capacity of staff to develop research proposals is needed before the reputation and credibility of the college as a research institution can be developed.