This paper reports on a study of the implementation of science teacher education through virtual and open distance learning in the Mashonaland Central Province, Zimbabwe. The study provides insight into challenges faced by students and lecturers on inception of the program at four centres. Data was collected from completed evaluation survey forms of forty-two lecturers who were directly involved at the launch of the program and in-depth interviews. Qualitative data analysis revealed that the programme faces potential threat from centre-, institution-, lecturer-, and student-related factors. These include limited resources, large classes, inadequate expertise in open and distance education, inappropriate science teacher education qualifications, implementer conflict of interest in program participation, students’ low self-esteem, lack of awareness of quality parameters of delivery systems among staff, and lack of standard criteria to measure the quality of services. The paper recommends that issues raised be addressed in order to produce quality teachers.
Globally, many nations have put in place policies on technology enhanced teaching and learning in an effort to keep abreast with the rapid advancement in technology. However, the use of technology in education has been slow in many third world countries, inclusive of Zimbabwe. COVID-19 restrictions inadvertently accelerated the adoption of digital instructional interface devices (DIIDs). Smartphones are preferred DIIDs because of their popularity amongst children as well as teachers. However, their successful penetration as DIIDs is largely dependent on teachers’ dispositions as key agents of curriculum implementation. Zimbabwe is known to have a 52% smartphone penetration rate for all citizens. The study was therefore carried out to determine the penetration rate of smartphones in science teachers, and also to probe teachers’ views on learners being allowed unlimited access to smartphones. The study adopted descriptive survey design from a quantitative research approach. Data was collected from 179 science teachers through a self-developed electronic questionnaire that was administered through the Kobo Toolbox online survey application. Results show that the smartphone penetration rate in science teachers is 87%. Multitasking and indecent exposure are the main forms of learner deviance that make teachers more reluctant to accept smartphones as DIIDs. In the presence of school-wide and classroom policies that cater for both merits of smartphone use and ease of policy enforcement, Zimbabwe science teachers are however ready to fully embrace smartphones as useful DIIDs.
This article forms part of a major study being conducted in Zimbabwe to explore the possibilities of integrating indigenous knowledge of plant healing (Ikoph) into western-oriented classroom science. The article reports on an aspect of research methodology. This study explored appropriate strategies for gaining access to indigenous knowledge holders, and for generating indigenous knowledge data from these knowledge holders. It is a descriptive study rooted in an African indigenous research methodology. Data were generated through field-noted observations and audio-recorded conversations with 12 participants during the phases of attaining access and of data generation. The findings demonstrated that the participants hold a solid spiritual worldview alongside that of western science and Christianity. Ikoph occupies these participants' metaphysical knowledge zone, although when asked they initially display western science and Christian worldviews related to plant healing. The use of the knowledge holders' language, terminology and metaphors, and of socio-cultural research protocols and methods, was pivotal in accessing the indigenous knowledge of plant healing. It also emerged that spirits play a central role in penetrating this metaphysical knowledge zone. It is argued that classical interpretive research approaches are constricting research involving indigenous knowledge. A shift from such approaches to those that accommodate unique aspects of spirituality, language, methods and protocols of the researched-that is, indigenous African interpretive approaches-is being called for.
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