How do you solve these problems? (Question 10)

The following are some of the things that may help solve the problems encountered by the participants when teaching Physical Sciences in class to the learners:

During the course of offering tuition to the learners in Physical Sciences one problem that is pervasive is that of the huge numbers of the learners that they have to contend with in their Physical Sciences classes. P1 said: “The problem I am facing especially this year is the numbers – they are too many. These are some of the challenges that we have – the numbers of the kids.” During classroom teaching no special arrangement is accorded to this problem but just to teach them all in a class, but the ideal is that a science class should not have more than 30 learners which would allow for individual attention. “If the number of learners in a Physical Sciences class cannot be more than 30; make 30 to be the maximum number because that needs individual attention for the learners” (P4).

This issue of the large numbers of learners in the classrooms which causes under-performance would appear to in disharmony with the following statement. Mzah (2011:88) states that one school had an average of 54 learners in its science classes and produced the best science results. The school scored 75% and was the highest rating among the top 100 schools.

According to P2 the Department of Education will not allow a situation where learners are not allowed to take Physical Sciences if they so wish as everybody has a right to education and this makes them admit more learners in their classes. One way of overcoming this dilemma according to P7 would be that of encouraging the teachers to furnish assistance to learners in terms of subject choice at high school level. The restructuring of schools by the Department of Education to make high schools start at grade 8 will ease their frustrations as they will be with

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the learners for a longer period of time from grade 8 to grade 12. Currently they have learners with them for only 3 years in high school (P6).

Finally P5 advises that there is the desire on the part of the participants that in Physical Sciences there should be a separation of the Physics portion from that of the Chemistry portion and that they be taught as separate subjects if that is possible as he put it: “We do whatever we can to improve it, they should also look into it in the future. From experience in other countries it is not easy to find anything like this that Chemistry and Physics are combined being taught in class; you have teachers for Chemistry and those for Physics and that if they look into that it will improve the pass rate I think so.”

These suggestions from the participants to alleviate the problems in the teaching and learning of science in the schools are practical and the onus would be with the powers that be in the Department of Education to consider looking at them in detail for possible piloting and ultimately implementation. Participants believe that the issue of the large numbers should be addressed so that a science class should not have learners in excess of 30 which will enable them to give individual attention, increase effectiveness and relieve them in the work they do. This desire on the part of the participants is reasonable because overcrowding in classes has certainly led to the malfunctioning of the schools in terms of the learners performing poorly in science. Setati (2011:96) states that the type and kind of an educational programme offered in a school has relevance for the capacity of the building. When the capacity of the building is exceeded, extreme pressure is exerted upon all of the facilities and areas that educators, administrators and learners need to use for an effective educational programme. The National Education Policy Act (NEPA) (1996: B – 50) states that the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Education of each province must ensure that there are enough school places to enable each child living in the province to attend school during the compulsory phase. It is my view that this has not been done to satisfaction by the Department of Education and so this must be addressed.

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Career guidance lessons for learners should be furnished to encourage learners to choose subjects that meet their requirements. Perhaps the restructuring of schools to have high schools commencing at grade 8 may help. However, the problem of large classes implies that there is an insufficient number of teachers to teach the subject in the schools hence the overload. It would be better to solve the problems that currently exist first for instance to employ more teachers and then to do the restructuring. Gultig et al (2002:4) states that learners should be encouraged to reflect on their own learning progress and to develop the skills and strategies needed to study through open learning. As for the separation of Physics from Chemistry, it would probably raise further problems in other subjects such as life sciences. Having dealt with the issues that could alleviate the problems encountered in teaching Physical Sciences, the next section will focus on solving issues related to practical work