Teachers struggle with curriculum

National, Normal
Source:

By STEPHANIE SUSAME DWU journalism student

EAST Sepik primary education adviser Alois Kawe said the province’s standard of education was the lowest in the country last year and is in dire need of improvement.
He said the weak implementation of the Outcome Based Education (OBE) was the cause of students doing badly last year because the examinations were based on the OBE curriculum.
“Many teachers did not have adequate skills and knowledge to teach the OBE syllabus. They are not properly trained to teach the OBE syllabus.
“This is the second year of OBE’s implementation and our teachers are struggling to acquire the knowledge and right skills to teach. The OBE syllabus depends on what the teachers input for the students, unlike the previous teaching system.
“In the previous objective teaching, teachers plan lessons to achieve an objective at the end of the day. The OBE is like a pipeline where teachers input the ideas and let the students explore and learn on their own through other means,” Mr Kawe said.
We need to conduct more in-service training for teachers on the OBE curriculum but are unable to that due to insufficient funds, he said.
He said that East Sepik’s education department was in the process of replacing old teaches with new graduate teachers because most of the old teachers are certificate teachers and have reached their retirement age.
“New graduate teachers will have better knowledge and skills to teach the OBE because they are trained to teach the OBE syllabus. They are, therefore, in a better position to help students secure better results,” he said.
Mr Kawe said the provincial government was not supportive in providing funds for the healthy growth of the OBE curriculum.
“We have insufficient materials and facilities, such as textbooks, libraries and other materials essential for the OBE system,” he said.