Findings from the interviews indicated that the environment in which the teacher educators in this study were working showed structural properties that influenced them to implement the curriculum in ways which made them either repeat or change what they were doing before the new curriculum was implemented. The section below examines teacher educators’ responses in this area:
4.2.1. Infrastructure
Findings from the interviews revealed that some renovations were done to the infrastructure such as additional classrooms to accommodate the large number of students. But these classrooms in some instances were not appropriate for the training of student teachers for the teaching of Pre- and Lower Primary levels. The teacher educators made the following remarks in regard to these dimensions:
Classrooms that are meant for the teaching of Pre-and Lower primary phase do not exist. Because this is where teacher educators can put student teachers in small numbers to demonstrate to them how they could group learners into smaller groups for practical activities (Tikamo TE 1).
Lack of classrooms that are specifically made for Pre- and Lower Primary to model student teachers on the teaching of learners at primary level (Rosmund TE 3).
Laboratories where student teachers could go and develop materials for Pre- and Lower Primary learners are not available (Hifemo TE 2).
Student teachers are not modelled into real Pre-and Lower Primary classrooms (Tikamo TE 3).
From the responses, there is an indication that all the teacher educators believed that infrastructures that were recently built cannot help them prepare student teachers adequately for the teaching of Pre-and Lower Primary classrooms in the schools. The teacher educators felt that when the student teachers leave campuses they should be equipped with practical knowledge which will enable them to handle the Pre-and Lower Primary classrooms in the schools. According to the teacher educators this was not the situation during their training.
4.2.2. The implementation of the language policy for Pre-and Lower Primary education
Language policy is a structure that has power to either enable or constrain the implementation of a curriculum. All the teacher educators interviewed indicated that the policy is not implemented as intended due to the following reasons: Most of the teacher educators do not have expertise in the mother tongues that are offered at their specific campuses. The mother tongues that I am referring to are: Rumanyo, Rukwangali, Thimbukushu (Rosmund campus), Silozi (Tikamo campus), Oshikwanyama, Oshindonga, Oshikwambi (Hifemo campus), Otjiherero, Khoekhoegowab and Afrikaans (Kokalipi campus). Teacher educators from the different regions whose mother tongues are totally different from the ones offered at the campus are the ones recruited in the department of Pre- and Lower Primary education. The situation is that student teachers were supposed to do
subjects such as Mathematics, Environmental education and Social studies through the medium of the mother tongue which is not the case in most of the campuses.
The teacher educators made the following statements in this regard:
I am Afrikaans speaking and teach Environmental studies. For me I just teach the content in English, because I do not speak or even understand any of the mother tongues offered at our campus. The challenge is that when my students go for teaching practice they are forced to teach Environmental Education in Otjiherero which is a big challenge for them (Kokalipi TE1).
I still maintain the thinking that provision to be made in the curriculum for students to learn the subjects through the medium of instruction to avoid the challenges that they will experience in schools (Rosmund 1 &2).
We are not doing fair to our students. What we are doing here is not equipping students to be well prepared for the job (Tikamo TE 1).
Though students are taught in their various mother-tongues, this does not equip students with knowledge that they can use to handle other subjects such as Mathematics, Social studies and the rest through mother tongue instructions (Hifemo TE 2).
The policy for Pre-and Lower Primary education clearly states the importance of teaching mother tongues at this level, but this is overlooked (Kokalipi TE 1)
From the responses, there is an indication that all the teacher educators feel that the actual implementation of the language policy for Pre-and Lower Primary Education is not taking place as intended. All the teacher educators believe that the student teachers can be equipped with necessary knowledge and skills of mother tongue when they are taught through the medium of mother tongue specifically in subjects such as Mathematics, Environmental Studies and other subjects. Furthermore, they believe that through the teaching of mother tongue student teachers can be equipped with the contents and concepts that are used in mother tongue which they in turn will use to communicate very well with learners in the schools. This will benefit both the teacher
and learners in the class which will in the long run improve the learners’ learning. The latter was an interesting comment as mother tongue in this regard was not only seen as a tool that is of value to the teacher and his practice, but also with direct application to the learners.
4.2.3. Teaching materials
Findings from the interviews revealed that there is a lack of teaching materials that are written in mother tongues offered in various campuses. These include the following mother tongues: Rumanyo, Rukwangali, Thimbukushu, Silozi, Oshikwanyama, Oshindonga, Oshikwambi, Otjiherero and Afrikaans. Teacher educators expressed themselves in the following manner on these issues:
Before I met my students, I spent time on translating the content from the English version to Rukwangali. Course outlines are written in English, books are written in English, information on the internet is English. All these need to be translated. It is a big challenge because during the process of translation I sometimes miss a point. This sometimes leads to information wrongly communicated to the students (Rosmund TE 2).
The campus does not have sufficient books that are written in the mother tongues offered at our campus. This is a big challenge, I keep on translating from the English version into the mother tongue (Hifemo TE 3).
As I indicated in Chapter Two, the use of mother tongue at Pre-and Lower Primary education has been decided around the notion that learning is best achieved through the medium of the mother tongue of the learner. Furthermore, it allows young ones to freely communicate with their teachers on various subject matters i.e. storytelling and reading. (Ministry of Education, 2005: 5).
The responses of teacher educators revealed that the implementation of the language policy is not taking place as required. This is due to the lack of expertise in mother tongues in both campuses and lack of teaching materials that are written in the mother tongues that are offered in the campuses. My analysis of the interview data indicates that teacher educators in my study are
confronted with the constraining influence on their ability to implement the curriculum mandated by the new B.Ed. Pre-and Lower Primary curriculum. I therefore argue that most of the structures discussed above contribute to the issue of English being the dominant medium of instruction in the teaching of Pre-and Lower Primary education in both teacher education and in the schools. My analysis of the data shows that the language policy implementation has constraining power rather enabling power over the implementation of the new curriculum.