Culture, according to Archer refers to the beliefs, attitudes and atmosphere which has also a strong influence in conditioning curriculum practices (1995; 1996). The purpose of the interview in this section was to explore how the teacher educators in my study understand, experience and interpret the implementation of the B.Ed. Pre-and Lower Primary curriculum. The teacher educators were asked whether it was necessary to adopt the B.Ed. Pre-and Lower Primary curriculum for Namibian teacher education.
4.3.1. Improving the standard of teaching
All the teacher educators commented that this curriculum will reduce the number of unqualified teachers in most of the schools in Namibia. Kokalipi (TE 1) mentioned in the interview discussion “currently most of the schools are making use of Grade 12 drop outs to teach Pre-and Lower
Primary phase.” Furthermore, he said, “Pre-Primary phase was previously not in a school system, it was just a program offered by the Ministry of Gender, but with the introduction of B.Ed. Pre- and Lower Primary curriculum more teachers will be trained to teach the Pre –and Lower Primary phases in the schools.” Rosmund TE 2 also noted… “the program will lift up the standard of Pre- and Lower Primary education in Namibia because most of the teachers will have the required qualification to teach at Pre- and Lower Primary phase.”
4.3.2. Conducive atmosphere for change
The teacher educators in my study were also asked whether the atmosphere at their campuses was conducive for curriculum change at the time of implementation. All the teacher educators in my study noted on the issue of atmosphere as follow: The atmosphere at the time of the implementation was not conducive. This was due to a lack of infrastructure, teaching materials and mother tongue expertise which made the implementation of the new curriculum very difficult. The teacher educators also experienced a situation of ‘see for yourself’, whether they were qualified or not qualified. They commented that most of the activities were left in the teacher educators’ hands (This was whether at their level or beyond their level). The teacher educators made the following statements in this regard:
The atmosphere was one of the stress, because I did not know how to do what was presented to me. Teaching a subject through a mother tongue instruction that myself do not speak well or even understand (Rosmund T2).
I was given to teach a mother tongue which I never taught before, no training received, because there was no one else at the campus to teach it, though I speak the language, I struggled alone, no one could help, and no one could understand what I was going through, a situation of see for yourself (Tikamo T2).
The program is relevant, but it seem lacking proper planning and preparation, it was done in a harsh manner, just rushed into the system (Kokalipi T1)
The interviewees further expressed a view on the issue of job security. What the teacher educators were saying is that they were not sure whether they would be contracted again as lecturers, because most of them at the time of implementation did not have a Master’s degree, which was one of the requirements put for them by the University of Namibia. Rosmund (TE 3) stated, I only have a
Bachelor degree honors, and I am not sure whether I will be a lecturer or not.” Kokalipi (TE 2)
also noted… “I did not yet obtain a master degree, I might be told to go and join the Ministry of
However, the Ministry of Education in agreement with the University of Namibia gave teacher educators a grace period of five years to improve their qualifications through staff development programs.
4.3.3. Overall impression of conditions for change
The above descriptions, of factors influencing implementation, the analysis of the data, has shown that teacher educators who participated in this study and the planners of the B.Ed. Pre-and Lower Primary curriculum programs had some similar interpretation of the new curriculum. Three conclusions can be drawn. First, while the teacher educators and the planners of the new curriculum appeared to agree on certain discourse such as the reduction of the number of unqualified teachers, they did not consider other factors that would help support the program to be implemented successfully.
Secondly, it seems that many teacher educators in this study drew a great deal from the old way of implementing a curriculum, for example that of teaching subjects for Pre-and Lower Primary curriculum through the medium of English rather the mother tongue as they did in the previous programs which were not offered anymore.
Thirdly, the Ministry of Education and the University of Namibia saw the introduction of a new curriculum as a solution to the problem of unqualified teachers without taking into consideration how these changes will manifest itself during the implementation. I therefore argue that the teacher educators in my study, even though they accepted the new curriculum, did not understand fully the requirements of the new B.Ed. Pre-and Lower Primary curriculum. Furthermore, the curriculum planners took hasty decisions. They did not do proper planning and consultations in advance. They just planned the curriculum without considering factors that may either enable or constrain the implementation of the new curriculum. A thorough investigation was supposed to be conducted to determine the structural conditions each campus had for the new curriculum program to be introduced.
Moreover, it is evident from the analysis of the interview data that the teacher educators in my study did not anticipate factors that could make them not to implement the new curriculum as expected.
In the next section I discuss how teacher educators in my study responded to the structural and cultural challenges that they encountered in their implementation of the B.Ed. Pre-and Lower Primary curriculum.