REPORT FROM STIME -COORDINATOR(South Dayi)

GHANA EDUCATION SERVICE

SOUTH DAYI DISTRICT EDUCATION DIRECTORATE

REPORT ON MONITORING OF MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE TEACHING IN THE UPPER PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN THE DISTRICT

INTRODUCTION

The District Directorate from the 21st of March to the 3rd of April, 2014 under-took an unannounced exercise to monitor the teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics in the Upper Primary Schools throughout the District.

AIM

The exercise was aimed at identifying the strengths and weaknesses of teachers at this level in the teaching of the above two subjects so as to adopt appropriate intervention to resolve their difficulties.

PARTICIPATION

A total of 47 out of the expected 54 upper primary teachers in all the six circuits were observed making 87% of teachers who were monitored. Three primary schools from each of the circuits were selected for this very important exercise. The criteria used was based on the order of merit for 2013 BECE results. This implied that the primary schools that were chosen for observation had their JHS performed poorly in last years’ BECE. In all, eighteen (18) primary schools were visited. Two officers conducted the above exercise and were;

Mr. Joshua G.K Baako - Research and Records Officer,
Mr. Paul Consider K. Mensah – STMIE Coordinator.

The two officers used a designed form which had the following monitoring indicators for the exercise; Name of school, Enrolment, Number of teachers on staff, Name of teacher observed, Rank and years in service class(es) taught, Teacher’s attendance, Scheme of work, lesson note preparation, lesson delivery, Use of TLM, Teacher’s work output, Availability of textbooks, Distribution of textbooks to pupils, Availability of TLMs in the school and finally Teacher- Pupils ratio the school, comments and remarks.

However the classes that each teacher taught were indicated together with their rating. Table 1&2 shows their performance.

TABLE 1

NB:

v NI means Needs Improvement.

v - Means Items not presented for observation.

v 6A & 6B mean Class Six A and B.

v 5 & 6 mean combined class of Five and Six.

TABLE 2.

GENERAL PERFORMANCE

From tables 1&2, with the exception of five (5) classes whose attendance is average, performance in terms of attendance by teachers are good. Generally teachers did quite well in their lesson notes preparation and schemes of work but only just a hand full had their lesson notes not up to date and hence were rated as average and need improvement. The worse of performance was noticed in lesson delivery, Use of TLMs and work output.

OBSERVATIONS MADE

Teachers in schools having mentees are either not regular/stable in class or come to school to only sign the attendance register and leave the school to do their own thing in town.
Some schools engage school pupils in manual work and hence misuses the contact hours.
About 70 percent of teachers do not have the new syllabus and so had to use topics/ content in the textbook to prepare their schemes of work and lesson notes.
Government textbooks supplied to the schools were just inadequate. In some schools, textbooks were locked up in the cardboard at the head teacher’s office.
Most teachers talk to the chalkboard during lesson delivery and in other cases objectives did not follow the SMART format.

SUGGESTION

Intensive monitoring should be periodically carried out in schools with teacher trainees to make sure that their mentors stay in class to help the mentees.
The Directorate should take it upon itself to produce the hard copy of the new syllabus in all the subjects so they can sell them to the schools.
Enough textbooks should be supplied in all the subjects by the Directorate to the schools to cater for each pupil.

THE WAY FORWARD

The District Directorate would organize a skill training workshop for Upper Primary School teachers in Science and Mathematics.

PAUL CONSIDER K. MENSAH

(STMIE - COORDINATOR)