Some policy-related implementation dynamics

Findings from this study revealed a host of policy-related implementation dynamics that played out on Stella’s practice. It is these multiple exogenous issues that emerged from my data abstraction that resulted in the theme “policy-related implementation dynamics”.

These complex implementation issues are explored in this section to address the second part of the research question on the personal and contextual factors that play out on teachers as they implement this curriculum. On the basis of Stella’s perceptions, I categorised the policy-related issues according to the different levels of the education system at which they occur, shaping and framing Stella’s teaching practice.

5.6.2.2.1 Macro-level policy-related implementation dynamics

At the macro level of policy implementation, people working in the Ministry of Education and the Curriculum Development Unit (CDU) affected Stella’s implementation practices. According to Stella, their failure to produce a sufficiently developed and clearly described curriculum made the curriculum unclear to Stella during the scheming/planning stage and during actual implementation. Stella said she found some of the curriculum guidelines difficult to operationalise in actual teaching. Elements such as themes, life skills, and several participatory teaching methods were difficult for her.

Stella thus brought to light the constraining problems that have often plagued educational change, as a result of bold policy decisions made by change leaders.

When high-ranking change agents such as local education authorities sanction slapdash adoption and enactment of a premature and poorly conceived curriculum policy, the host of implementation problems that attend such actions cannot be overemphasised.

In their capacity as change leaders operating at Zimbabwe’s central curriculum

which Stella experienced. According to Stella, the CDU did not provide sufficient and relevant curriculum materials. This suggests that dissemination of curriculum materials to teachers is a core responsibility that change leaders failed to fulfil to a satisfactory degree.

The evidence also shows that the Ministry of Education’s policy on the amount of time allocated to teaching about AIDS was a cause for concern to Stella. For Stella, the Ministry’s decision to allocate only 30 minutes per week for teaching of the AIDS curriculum meant inadequate teaching time in the context of an already congested school curriculum. This evidence is consistent with my observation of Stella’s lessons, which, in most cases, took far longer than the stipulated teaching time.

Related to teaching time is the issue of the Ministry’s policy decision on the personnel who should be implementing the AIDS curriculum, which Stella raised in the interviews. For Stella, the Ministry’s policy mandating that primary school teachers teach all 10 subjects in the school curriculum causes congestion of subject curricula, which are handled by one generalist teacher. The resulting problem is burn out due to work overload, and a negative attitude towards the curriculum. Stella made the following response, which illustrates the serious negative impact that macro-policy decisions concerning time and allocation of personnel to school subject curricula are having on her:

The Ministry, they just expect, for example, us teachers, especially primary school teachers, to teach any subject they think of. They don’t consider that we are already overloaded. For example, we are supposed to teach <er> nine subjects, and then AIDS is going to be the tenth one. How can I be a fountain of knowledge?

When Stella complained about the Ministry’s policy decisions on the aforementioned issues, it can be hypothesised that the idea of a general practitioner implementing all school curricula has the potential danger of diluting teaching efforts in some curricula that teachers may deem to be less important. My hypothesis about this matter seems to be supported by Stella’s opinion that, besides “duplicating” the AIDS curriculum, whose topics are carried in the content subjects, the Ministry itself has undermined this curriculum by not examining it. Stella thought that the Ministry’s

trivialisation and marginalisation of the AIDS curriculum due to its not examining it also perpetuated a negative attitude among teachers concerning the curriculum.

It is without question that a teacher that has been professionally trained to teach a particular subject curriculum can be expected to expertly deal with the opportunities and challenges of its implementation. Stella believed that the HIV/AIDS pre-service teacher training system in her country was rather deficient. She blamed the teacher educators, whom she claimed did not adequately equip her with skills and knowledge on the content and pedagogy of the AIDS curriculum. She argued that the emphasis of the lecturers on theory rather than the practice of implementing this curriculum left her insufficiently prepared to effectively implement this curriculum.

Finally, Stella contended that the Ministry’s policy on the language of instruction had a negative impact on her practice. Since for all the pupils Stella teaches, English is a second language, most learners fail to participate due to lack of proficiency in the language. Whereas Ministry policy expects teachers to use English as the medium of instruction, the nature of the curriculum dictates that speaking dominates in the lessons, and that use of the mother tongue is therefore more feasible. The medium of instruction problem was indeed evident in Stella’s lessons. At the teacher’s invitation to discuss issues, I saw many learners struggling to communicate their ideas in English. As a result, in an attempt to move ahead with the lesson, Stella resorted to allowing her learners to switch to Shona, their mother tongue to express themselves more easily. How the language in which policy messages are couched by policy designers to be communicated by the end users, in this case the learners, can be a contentious issue.

5.6.2.2.2 Meso-level policy-related implementation dynamics

At the provincial and local education authority levels, there were some implementation issues that Stella felt impacted on her practices. Stella felt that the setting of unrealistic job expectations by inspectors tended to make her frustrated with her work. She intimated that the work expectations of supervisors, such as inspectors and district education officers required teachers to complete scheming/planning by the end of a prescribed time frame. She considered that to be asking too much from already oversubscribed generalist teachers who are handling

up to 10 subjects single-handedly. This resulted in hurried teaching preparation to meet the deadlines.

One could reason that “intense classroom pressure”, coupled with the pressing demands of the AIDS curriculum itself, could play out on the quality of Stella’s implementation. Hence, while this pressure and these demands could enable timely completion of preparatory tasks to enact the curriculum, this meso-level regulatory pressure in the absence of the necessary facilitative support, tended to hinder Stella’s change efforts.

5.6.2.2.3 Micro-level policy-related implementation dynamics

At the local site, people such as the school head and fellow school administrators interpret policy and play the leading role of facilitating change. Their decisions and actions on curriculum policy enactment are normally guided by general education policy. According to Stella, her school head did not monitor the implementation of the AIDS curriculum. While he should be the leader who sets the pace, the head at Stella’s school rather played an indifferent, uncommitted role.

The foregoing evidence attests to the extent to which the actions and decisions of specific change leaders with regard to various levels of curriculum implementation can shape and frame the practices of an individual teacher in the classroom. Stella admitted that these change leaders could have influenced her policy configurations and actual practices by their decisions and actions. By failing to set a proper example in the school for the teachers to develop a culture of paying serious attention to this curriculum, Stella’s head contributed to the negative attitude, lack of commitment, and feeling of apathy in Stella.